There are four main themes, or differences, that Diamond discusses in Guns, Germs, And Steel: differences in plant and animal species available for domestication, rates of diffusion and migration within continents, rates of diffusion and migration between continents, and the different demographics of the continents. Diamond argues that it is these four important differences that led to the superiority of mainly the European culture over the rest of the world, but he does not lay this out until the epilogue of the book. It is much more subtle in the chapters that these are the major points that he is iterating. He begins by discussing the anatomy and migration patterns of the earliest humans on earth, and then moves on to the extinc

Section three basically discusses the rise of ?civilization.? The Eurasian societies were able to master food production at a faster pace than the societies of Africa and Australia. Because they could produce a surplus of food, they had more time to specialize in other areas ? such as tool production and invention. This allowed them to trade with other areas, exchange more ideas, and eventually to develop a written language to keep track of these exchanges. Government and religion inevitably arose and became the regulators of not only trade, but of information as well. At this point in history, China was the dominant society, not Europe, and probably would have remained dominant had their government not adopted and isolationist policy.

Reinhard Bendix, author of ?The Comparative Analysis of Historical Change,? writes in his article that universal themes across region and time are important, and become more obvious with the use of quantitative information, such as charts and maps.

The next section discusses the many factors of food production, and the importance of food production to the advancement of societies. Diamond discusses the origin of food production, why it occurred in certain areas, and at what points in time they occurred there. He concluded that only a few areas or the world developed food production independently, and at different points in time, and that tools, geography, and climate dramatically affected the diffusion of food production. He basically argued that the diffusion of the knowledge of food production occurred much more rapidly from east to west, than from north to south, because the climate, environment, and geography is more similar laterally, than longitudinally throughout the world. This is one of the factors that helps to explain why Europe was able to advance faster than Africa, even though Africa had a head start.

Diamond devotes the next section to studying some areas of the world on a small scale and explaining how the different areas of the world developed. He is basically summing up his theory without pointing out the specifics. The focus of this section is bringing together the loose ends and explaining why Europeans were able to advance so rapidly and conquer the Americas before any of the other societies in the world. In the epilogue he lays his theory flat on the table and spells out th

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