“...neither life nor history is an enterprise for those who seek simplicity and consistency.” — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
“With the rise of chiefdoms around 7,500 years ago, people had to learn, for the first time in history, how to encounter… — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
We're uncomfortable about considering history as a science. It's classified as a social science, which is considered not quite scientific. — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
History as well as life itself is complicated -- neither life nor history is an enterprise for those who seek simplicity and… — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
Much of human history has consisted of unequal conflicts between the haves and the have-nots. — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
“throughout human history farmers have tended to despise hunter-gatherers as primitive, hunter-gatherers have despised farmers as ignorant, and herders have despised both.” — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
“Many of our problems are broadly similar to those that undermined ... Norse Greenland, and that many other past societies also struggled… — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
Introspection and preserved writings give us far more insight into the ways of past humans than we have into the ways of… — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
The broadest pattern of history - namely, the differences between human societies on different continents - seems to me to be attributable… — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
For anyone inclined to caricature environmental history as 'environmental determinism,' the contrasting histories of the Dominican Republic and Haiti provide a useful… — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
One way to explain the complexity and unpredictability of historical systems, despite their ultimate determinacy, is to note that long chains of… — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
Throughout history, adultery has had few rivals as a cause of murder and human misery. The reason we tend to resemble our… — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
The history of interactions among disparate peoples is what shaped the modern world through conquest, epidemics and genocide. Those collisions created reverberations… — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
I decided that now is the time to start doing the things that really interest me and I find important. It was… — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
“NINETEENTH-CENTURY AUTHORS TENDED TO INTERPRET history as a progression from savagery to civilization. Key hallmarks of this transition included the development of… — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
“Archaeologists studying the rise of farming have reconstructed for us a stage where we made one of the most crucial decisions in… — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
“Above all, it seems to me wrongheaded and dangerous to invoke historical assumptions about environmental practices of native peoples in order to… — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
“Thanks to this availability of suitable wild mammals and plants, early peoples of the Fertile Crescent could quickly assemble a potent and… — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
“Perhaps the most important single step in the whole history of writing was the Sumerians’ introduction of phonetic representation, initially by writing… — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
“It seems logical to suppose that history's pattern reflects innate differences among people themselves. Of course, we're taught that it's not polite… — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
“A striking example from the history of writing is the origin of the syllabary devised in Arkansas around 1820 by a Cherokee… — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
We know from our recent history that English did not come to replace U.S. Indian languages merely because English sounded musical to… — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
“Besides Sumerian cuneiform, the other certain instance of independent origins of writing in human history comes from Native American societies of Mesoamerica,… — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
We study the injustices of history for the same reason that we study genocide, and for the same reason that psychologists study… — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
Bird taxonomy is a difficult field because of the severe anatomical constraints imposed by flight. There are only so many ways to design a… — Jared Diamond Copy Share
What did the last Easter Islander say as he chopped down the last tree? The Easter Islanders didnt have anthropologists. — Jared Diamond Copy Share
“We come to conquer this land by his command, that all may come to a knowledge of God and of His Holy Catholic Faith;… — Jared Diamond Copy Share
“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… — Jared Diamond Copy Share
Human societies vary in lots of independent factors affecting their openness to innovation. — Jared Diamond Copy Share
No government is here forever. And there are other forces - the most potent force in our society, in fact, big business - doing… — Jared Diamond Copy Share
“Those parasites pass to a person from an eaten animal, but the virus causing laughing sickness (kuru) in the New Guinea highlands used to… — Jared Diamond Copy Share
“...invokes the supposed stimulatory effects of their homeland's cold climate and the inhibitory effects of hot, humid, tropical climates on human creativity and energy.… — Jared Diamond Copy Share
“Throughout the Americas, diseases introduced with Europeans spread from tribe to tribe far in advance of the Europeans themselves, killing an estimated 95 percent… — Jared Diamond Copy Share
History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves — Jared Diamond Copy Share
We study the injustices of history for the same reason that we study genocide, and for the same reason that psychologists study the minds… — Jared Diamond Copy Share
I decided that now is the time to start doing the things that really interest me and I find important. It was in the… — Jared Diamond Copy Share
“As a result of that confined distribution, peoples who pride themselves on being civilized have always viewed writing as the sharpest distinction raising them… — Jared Diamond Copy Share
Infectious diseases introduced with Europeans, like smallpox and measles, spread from one Indian tribe to another, far in advance of Europeans themselves, and killed… — Jared Diamond Copy Share
In fact, everywhere in the world there has been a flux between big and small societies. Big political units are constantly being formed, later… — Jared Diamond Copy Share
