Bravo, Jazzo, for steering us toward something less damaging.
Guns, Germs, and Steel is a great book. It looks at why civilizations have sprung up in different parts of the world, rather than others, throughout history and pre-history - and the history of farming really matters, as much of the "why" stems from which parts of the world had animals that could be easily domesticated (a horse can, but not a zebra) or crops that could be (e.g., lots of places had wheat, but only the Fertile Crescent had wheat whose seed pods shattered at the right time for the seeds to be collected and easily re-used for planting [IIRC]). This may seem fairly obvious, but Diamond paints a fascinating picture of it and goes on to explain how it relates to Pizarro's 90-odd men defeating the entire Inca empire.
As to The Fountainhead - keep in mind that she's a very compelling writer, but a bit of a zealot as well.
