GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL - Cloverport Independent Schools

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
IT IS A PLEASURE FOR ME TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE CONTRIBU¬
tions of many people to this book. My teachers at Roxbury Latin
School introduced me to the fascination of history. My great debt to my
many New Guinea friends will be obvious from the frequency with which
I cite their experiences. I owe an equally great debt (and absolution from
responsibility for my errors) to my many scientist friends and professional
colleagues, who patiently explained the subtleties of their subjects and
read my drafts. In particular, Peter Bellwood, Kent Flannery, Patrick
Kirch, and my wife, Marie Cohen, read the whole manuscript, and Charles
Heiser, Jr., David Keightley, Bruce Smith, Richard Yarnell, and Daniel
Zohary each read several chapters. Earlier versions of several of the chapters
appeared as articles in Discover magazine and in Natural History
magazine. The National Geographic Society, World Wildlife Fund, and
University of California at Los Angeles supported my fieldwork on Pacific
islands. I have been fortunate to have John Brockman and Katinka Matson
as my agents, Lori Iversen and Lori Rosen as my research assistants and
secretaries, Ellen Modecki as my illustrator, and as my editors Donald
Lamm at W W. Norton, Neil Belton and Will Sulkin at Jonathan Cape,
Willi Kohler at Fischer, Marc Zabludoff and Mark Wheeler and Polly
Shulman at Discover, and Ellen Goldensohn and Alan Ternes at Natural
History.