Quotes by Jared Diamond

About Jared Diamond:

Jared Mason Diamond is an American scientist and author best known for his popular science books The Third Chimpanzee (1991), Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997, awarded a Pulitzer Prize), Collapse (2005) and The World Until Yesterday (2012). 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 Professor of Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Perhaps our greatest distinction as a species is our capacity, unique among animals, to make counter-evolutionary choices.

Jared Diamond

No government is here forever. And there are other forces - the most potent force in our society, in fact, big business - doing good for the environment.

Jared Diamond

I've worked very hard in this book to keep the lines of communication open. I don't want to turn someone away from this information for partisan political reasons.

Jared Diamond

Some people have much more pull than other people. But when I say that the public has ultimate responsibility, I'm not saying it in a moral sense. I'm just saying it in the sense of what is it that's really going to bring change.

Jared Diamond

The main thing that gives me hope is the media. We have radio, TV, magazines, and books, so we have the possibility of learning from societies that are remote from us, like Somalia. We turn on the TV and see what blew up in Iraq or we see conditions ...

Jared Diamond

Twenty years ago, you might have been pessimistic and said there's no hope. But these days, some of our very biggest companies are acting remarkably cleanly. And in some cases, although not all cases, the CEOs are the driving forces behind that.

Jared Diamond

We study the injustices of history for the same reason that we study genocide, and for the same reason that psychologists study the minds of murderers and rapists... to understand how those evil things came about.

Jared Diamond

The broadest pattern of history - namely, the differences between human societies on different continents - seems to me to be attributable to differences among continental environments, and not to biological differences among peoples themselves.

Jared Diamond

We're uncomfortable about considering history as a science. It's classified as a social science, which is considered not quite scientific.

Jared Diamond

Introspection and preserved writings give us far more insight into the ways of past humans than we have into the ways of past dinosaurs. For that reason, I'm optimistic that we can eventually arrive at convincing explanations for these broadest patte...

Jared Diamond

Tasmanian history is a study of human isolation unprecedented except in science fiction - namely, complete isolation from other humans for 10,000 years.

Jared Diamond

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.

Jared Diamond

Take air quality in the United States today: It's about 30 percent better than it was 25 years ago, even though there are now more people driving more cars.

Jared Diamond

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.

Jared Diamond

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.

Jared Diamond

Starbucks goes to a great effort, and pays twice as much for its coffee as its competitors do, and is very careful to help coffee producers in developing countries grow coffee without pesticides and in ways that preserve forest structure.

Jared Diamond

Why did human development proceed at such different rates on different continents for the last 13,000 years?

Jared Diamond

Native Americans had only stone and wooden weapons and no animals that could be ridden. Those military advantages repeatedly enabled troops of a few dozen mounted Spaniards to defeat Indian armies numbering in the thousands.

Jared Diamond

The United States has long thought of itself as the land of infinite plenty, and historically we did have abundant resources. But now we are gradually exhausting our fisheries, our topsoil, our water. On top of that, we're coming to the end of world ...

Jared Diamond

Infectious diseases introduced with Europeans, like smallpox and measles, spread from one Indian tribe to another, far in advance of Europeans themselves, and killed an estimated 95% of the New World's Indian population.

Jared Diamond

Measles and TB evolved from diseases of our cattle, influenza from a disease of pigs, and smallpox possibly from a disease of camels. The Americas had very few native domesticated animal species from which humans could acquire such diseases.

Jared Diamond

Author Bio

  • NameJared Diamond
  • DescriptionAmerican scientist and author
  • BornSeptember 10, 1937
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionBiologist; Physiologist; Geographer; Writer
  • WorksThe Third Chimpanzee; Why Is Sex Fun?; Guns, Germs, And Steel; Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail Or Succeed; The World Until Yesterday
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship; MacArthur Fellows Program; Pulitzer Prize For General Non-Fiction; Tyler Prize For Environmental Achievement