Jared Diamond
Jared Diamond
Jared Mason Diamondis an American scientist and author best known for his popular science books The Third Chimpanzee; Guns, Germs, and Steel; Collapse; and The World Until Yesterday. Originally trained in physiology, Diamond is known for drawing from a variety of fields, including anthropology, ecology, geography and evolutionary biology. As of 2013, he is a professor of geography at the University of California, Los Angeles...
ProfessionNon-Fiction Author
Date of Birth10 September 1937
CityBoston, MA
water people community
In much of the rest of the world, rich people live in gated communities and drink bottled water. That's increasingly the case in Los Angeles where I come from. So that wealthy people in much of the world are insulated from the consequences of their actions.
epidemics world modern
The history of interactions among disparate peoples is what shaped the modern world through conquest, epidemics and genocide. Those collisions created reverberations that have still not died down after many centuries, and that are actively continuing in some of the world's most troubled areas.
crush religious patriotic
[W]hat makes patriotic and religious fanatics such dangerous opponents is not the deaths of the fanatics themselves, but their willingness to accept the deaths of a fraction of their number in order to annihilate or crush their infidel enemy.
trying warfare population
Forced to choose between limiting population or trying to increase food production, we chose the latter and ended up with starvation, warfare, and tyranny.
technology adopted
Technology has to be invented or adopted.
conflict humans human-history
Much of human history has consisted of unequal conflicts between the haves and the have-nots.
reflection two long
Two types of choices seem to me to have been crucial in tipping the outcomes [of the various societies' histories] towards success or failure: long-term planning and willingness to reconsider core values. On reflection we can also recognize the crucial role of these same two choices for the outcomes of our individual lives.
unique evolution biology
Biology is the science. Evolution is the concept that makes biology unique.
natal enormous crops
The southward advance of native African farmers with Central African crops halted in Natal, beyond which Central African crops couldn't grow - with enormous consequences for the recent history of South Africa.
simplicity consistency complicated
History as well as life itself is complicated -- neither life nor history is an enterprise for those who seek simplicity and consistency.
social uncomfortable considering
We're uncomfortable about considering history as a science. It's classified as a social science, which is considered not quite scientific.
easter ocean islands
The metaphor is so obvious. Easter Island isolated in the Pacific Ocean — once the island got into trouble, there was no way they could get free. There was no other people from whom they could get help. In the same way that we on Planet Earth, if we ruin our own [world], we won't be able to get help.
book people responding
People are responding so well to the book - it's really an upper.
face helpless oil people public says selling wood
People are not helpless in the face of big business. It's up to the public to say what it wants. Only when the public bans single-hulled oil tankers from American waters, only when the public says no more selling wood logged from old-growth forests, will companies... come up with other solutions.