As a biologist, Jared Diamond stepped on a lot of toes – historians, political scientists, economists – when he declared that he could explain “the last 13,000 years” of human history. But he did it with the best of intentions – to refute racist explanations of why Europeans came to dominate the world. “History followed different course for different peoples because of differences among peoples’ environments, not because of biological differences among people themselves,” he writes.

It’s a provocative book, packed with detail. The tools Europe used for conquest were – of course – guns, germs and steel; also literacy, bureaucracy, horses and ships. But Diamond argues the “ultimate causes” of why Europe had these tools were environmental. Animals suitable for domestication and plants suitable for agriculture were found only in a few areas, he says, and in those places society advanced. Further, Europe’s geography ran east-west, while Africa and America ran north-south. This meant Europe’s peoples faced similar climates and seasons and could more easily use each other’s discoveries. Diamond has many critics, but the case he makes is more subtle than they (and this review) allege.