“Before the spread of alphabetic writing, systems making much use of logograms were more common and included Egyptian hieroglyphs, Maya glyphs, and… — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
“All of these parallels between Mesoamerican and ancient western Eurasian writing testify to the underlying universality of human creativity.” — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
“As a result of that confined distribution, peoples who pride themselves on being civilized have always viewed writing as the sharpest distinction… — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
The King's 28 letters have been described by scholars as the world's best alphabet and the most scientific system of writing. — 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
“Knowledge brings power. Hence writing brings power to modern societies, by making it possible to transmit knowledge with far greater accuracy and… — 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
“INVENTING A WRITING system from scratch must have been incomparably more difficult than borrowing and adapting one. The first scribes had to… — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
“Thus, Sumerian writing came to consist of a complex mixture of three types of signs: logograms, referring to a whole word or… — Jared Diamond Copy Share Image
“All of these parallels between Mesoamerican and ancient western Eurasian writing testify to the underlying universality of human creativity. While Sumerian and… — 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
“• “To us today, it is tempting to ask why societies with early writing systems accepted the ambiguities that restricted writing to… — 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
“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
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
