hermiene.net

• PREFACE: Why Is World History Like an Onion?

• PROLOGUE: Yali’s Question
  The regionally differing courses of history

PART ONE: From Eden to Cajamarca

1. Up to the Starting Line
   What happened on all the continents before 11,000 B.C.?
2. A Natural Experiment of History
   How geography molded societies on Polynesian islands
3. Collision at Cajamarca
   Why the Inca emperor Atahuallpa did not capture King Charles I of Spain

PART TWO: The Rise and Spread of Food Production

1. Farmer Power
   The roots of guns, germs, and steel
2. History’s Haves and Have-Nots
   Geographic differences in the onset of food production
3. To Farm or Not to Farm
   Causes of the spread of food production
4. How to Make an Almond
   The unconscious development of ancient crops
5. Apples or Indians
   Why did peoples of some regions fail to domesticate plants?
6. Zebras, Unhappy Marriages, and the Anna Karenina Principle
   Why were most big wild mammal species never domesticated?
7. Spacious Skies and Tilted Axes
   Why did food production spread at different rates on different continents?

PART THREE: From Food to Guns, Germs, and Steel

1. Lethal Gift of Livestock
   The evolution of germs
2. Blueprints and Borrowed Letters
   The evolution of writing
3. Necessity’s Mother
   The evolution of technology
4. From Egalitarianism to Kleptocracy
   The evolution of government and religion

PART FOUR: Around the World in Five Chapters

1. Yali’s People
   The histories of Australia and New Guinea
2. How China Became Chinese
   The history of East Asia
3. Speedboat to Polynesia
   The history of the Austronesian expansion
4. Hemispheres Colliding
   The histories of Eurasia and the Americas compared
5. How Africa Became Black
   The history of Africa

• EPILOGUE: The Future of Human History as a Science

• Acknowledgments
• Further Readings
• Credits
• Index