《槍炮、細菌和鋼鐵》開篇：

核心：

歷史就像洋蔥一樣。作者Jared Diamond認為現代史只是表象，它的深層需要被逐層剝開來探尋理解歷史！

主要內容：

當下講世界歷史書籍大部分聚焦於具有讀寫文化的歐亞、北非文明（literate Eurasian and North-African societies），撒哈拉非洲、美洲、東南亞諸島、澳大利亞、新幾內亞和太平洋島國發生的歷史鮮有人關注！即使公元前3000年文字誕生以來的歷史只佔了整個500萬年人類物種史的0.1%，但確實主題內容，而剩下的99.9%鮮有人花大氣力研究！

作者質疑這種研究視角的偏見(Such narrowly focused accounts of world history suffer fron three advantages.)

1.Increasing numbers of people today are,quite understandably,interested in other societies besides those of western Eurasia.

2.For people specifically interested in the shaping of the modern world,a history limited to developments since the emergence of writing cannot provide deep understanding.

3.A history focused on western Eurasian societies completely bypasses the obvious big problem:Why were those societies the ones that became disproportionately powerful and innovative? 

Yali 's question:Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea,but we black people had little cargo of our own?

1.Jared Diamond的研究視角很獨樹一幟，多學科交叉研究手段豐富多彩（作者是語言學、生理學、生物學的集大成者），對少數弱勢人類群體的關注充分體現“科學家”和“歷史學家”的悲憫情懷！

"People tend to confuse an explanation of causes with a justification or acceptance of results.Researchers seek to understand the chain of causes to interrupt it."

2.三種人類歷史發展階段:

3.Jared Diamond強烈反對基因決定論，主張不同區域環境導致各人類團體不同的發展軌跡。

"History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples' environments,not because of biological differences among peoples themselves."多麼霸氣的觀點！

也許人類歷史的意義或者人生的意義就是在於探尋追求（未知未得渴望、理想）的過程！！！

The history is not "just one damn fact after another," as a cynic put it.There are really are broad history patterns to history,and the search for their explanation is as productive as it is fascinating!