| | Prologue: Yali's Question: The regionally differing courses of history | p. 13 |
| | Up to the Starting Line: What happened on all the continents before 11,000 B.C.? | p. 35 |
| | A Natural Experiment of History: How geography molded societies on Polynesian islands | p. 53 |
| | Collision at Cajamarca: Why the Inca emperor Atahuallpa did not capture King Charles I of Spain | p. 67 |
| | Farmer Power: The roots of guns, germs, and steel | p. 85 |
| | History's Haves and Have-Nots: Geographic differences in the onset of food production | p. 93 |
| | To Farm or Not to Farm: Causes of the spread of food production | p. 104 |
| | How to Make an Almond: The unconscious development of ancient crops | p. 114 |
| | Apples or Indians: Why did peoples of some regions fail to domesticate plants? | p. 131 |
| | Zebras, Unhappy Marriages, and the Anna Karenina Principle: Why were most big wild mammal species never domesticated? | p. 157 |
| | Spacious Skies and Tilted Axes: Why did food production spread at different rates on different continents? | p. 176 |
| | Lethal Gift of Livestock: The evolution of germs | p. 195 |
| | Blueprints and Borrowed Letters: The evolution of writing | p. 215 |
| | Necessity's Mother: The evolution of technology | p. 239 |
| | From Egalitarianism to Kleptocracy: The evolution of government and religion | p. 265 |
| | Yali's People: The histories of Australia and New Guinea | p. 295 |
| | How China became Chinese: The history of East Asia | p. 322 |
| | Speedboat to Polynesia: The history of the Austronesian expansion | p. 334 |
| | Hemispheres Colliding: The histories of Eurasia and the Americas compared | p. 354 |
| | How Africa became Black: The history of Africa | p. 376 |
| | Epilogue: The Future of Human History as a Science | p. 403 |
| | Acknowledgments | p. 427 |
| | Further Readings | p. 429 |
| | Credits | p. 459 |
| | Index | p. 461 |