List of Jared Diamond Quotes

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?

Livestock Adopted In Africa Were Eurasian Species That Came In From The North. Africa's Long Axis, Like That Of The Americas, Is North/south Rather Than East/west. Those Eurasian Domestic Mammals Spread Southward Very Slowly In Africa, Because They Had To Adapt To Different Climate Zones And Different Animal Diseases.

Rhino-mounted Bantu Shock Troops Could Have Overthrown The Roman Empire. It Never Happened.

Put Another Way, The Chimpanzees' Closest Relative Is Not The Gorilla But Humans.

Lest Those Islands Still Seem To You Too Remote In Space And Time To Be Relevant To Our Modern Societies, Just Think About The Risks... Of Our Increasing Globalization And Increasing Worldwide Economic Interdependence.

For Anyone Inclined To Caricature Environmental History As 'environmental Determinism,' The Contrasting Histories Of The Dominican Republic And Haiti Provide A Useful Antidote. Yes, Environmental Problems Do Constrain Human Societies, But The Societies' Responses Also Make A Difference.

Science Is Often Misrepresented As "the Body Of Knowledge Acquired By Performing Replicated Controlled Experiments In The Laboratory." Actually, Science Is Something Broader: The Acquisition Of Reliable Knowledge About The World.

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.

With The Macarthur Grant, I Realized That People Have High Expectations Of Me, That They Were Placing Me In This Group Of Achievers. I Compared What Id Actually Achieved In My Life With What I Would Like To Achieve And What Other People Have Achieved, And I Found That Comparison Depressing.

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.

Why Did Human Development Proceed At Such Different Rates On Different Continents For The Last 13,000 Years?

I Personally Am Not Conscious Of My Accent.