Yali's question: The regionally differing courses of history -- From Eden to Cajamarca. Up to the starting line : what happened on all the continents before 11,000 B.C.? -- A natural experiment of history : how geography molded societies on Polynesian islands -- Collision at Cajamarca : why the Inca emperor Atahuallpa did not capture King Charles I of Spain -- The rise and spread of food production. Farmer power : the roots of guns, germs, and steel -- History's haves and have-nots : geographic differences in the onset of food production -- To farm or not to farm : causes of the spread of food production -- How to make an almond : the unconscious development of ancient crops -- Apples or Indians : why did peoples of some regions fail to domesticate plants? -- Zebras, unhappy marriages, and the Anna Karenina principle : why were most big wild mammal species never domesticated? -- Spacious skies and tilted axes : why did food production spread at different rates on different continents? -- From food to guns, germs, and steel. Lethal gift of livestock : the evolution of germs -- Blueprints and borrowed letters : the evolution of writing -- Necessity's mother : the evolution of technology -- From egalitarianism to kleptocracy : the evolution of government and religion -- Around the world in five chapters. Yali's people : the histories of Australia and New Guinea -- How China became Chinese : the history of East Asia -- Speedboat to Polynesia : the history of Austronesian expansion -- Hemispheres colliding : the histories of Eurasia and the Americas compared -- How Africa became black : the history of Africa -- The future of human history as a science. Who are the Japanese? -- 2003 afterword: Guns, germs, and steel today.