Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
by Jared Diamond (W. W. Norton, 1997); audiobook read by Doug Ordunio (Random House, 2011)
A scientific work without literary pretentions (the audiobook plods along to an almost soporific extent), but the flow of the argument and the weight of evidence are hard to dispute. Title notwithstanding, Diamond convincingly reduces human history down to accidents of geography.