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
australia isolated continents
Australia is the most isolated continent.
animal land world
Eurasia ended up with the most domesticated animal species in part because it's the world's largest land mass and offered the most wild species to begin with.
focus important problem
The single most important problem is our misguided focus on identifying the single most important problem!
disaster blueprints elites
A blueprint for disaster in any society is when the elite are capable of insulating themselves.
native-american gun steel
It invites a search for ultimate causes: why were Europeans, rather than Africans or Native Americans, the ones to end up with guns, the nastiest germs, and steel?
ignorance past iron
The past was still a Golden Age, of ignorance, while the present is an Iron Age of willful bliss.
country years law
Federal elections happen every two years in this country. Presidential elections every four years. And four years just isn't long enough to dismantle all the environmental laws we've got in this country.
book years environmental
I decided that now is the time to start doing the things that really interest me and I find important. It was in the 10 years of the MacArthur grant that I began working on my first book... and I began putting more work into environmental history.
years people firsts
With the rise of chiefdoms around 7,500 years ago, people had to learn, for the first time in history, how to encounter strangers regularly without attempting to kill them.
asks
I've always been interested in a lot of things, and a lot of things at the same time, and I always tried to explain them to myself. I ask a lot of questions.
years development lasts
Why did human development proceed at such different rates on different continents for the last 13,000 years?
unique evolution biology
Biology is the science. Evolution is the concept that makes biology unique.
agriculture adoption way
The adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered.
fun people leisure
I'd rather spend my leisure time doing what some people call my work and I call my fun.