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A B O U T T H E S P E A K E R
D R . J A R E D D I A M O N D is an evolutionary biologist, physiologist,
biogeographer, and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel and
most recently Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Diamond tackles the
big questions:Why do some societies thrive and prosper while others shrivel and
die? How can humanity maximize the opportunity for human happiness while
saving the planet from ecological ruin? Are there lessons we can learn from
other great civilizations?
“I’ve set myself the modest task of trying to explain the broad pattern
of human history, on all the continents, for the last 13,000 years,” says Diamond.
“Why did history take such different evolutionary courses for peoples of different
continents? This problem has fascinated me for a long time, but it’s now ripe for
a new synthesis because of recent advances in many fields seemingly remote
from history, including molecular biology, plant and animal genetics, and
biogeography, archaeology, and linguistics.”
Renowned as the author of a number of popular science works that
combine anthropology, biology, linguistics, genetics, and history, Diamond is
best known for his bestselling book Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997), which asserts
that the main international issues of our time are legacies of processes that began
during the early-modern period, in which civilizations that had experienced an
extensive amount of “human development” began to intrude upon simpler
civilizations around the world.
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