Jared Diamond | |
|---|---|
 Diamond in 2016 | |
| Born | Jared Mason Diamond (1937-09-10)September 10, 1937 (age 88) Boston,Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Education | |
| Awards |
|
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physiology,biophysics,ornithology,environmental science,history,ecology,geography,evolutionary biology, andanthropology |
| Institutions | University of California, Los Angeles |
| Thesis | Concentrating activity of the gall-bladder (1961) |
Jared Mason Diamond (born September 10, 1937)[1] is an American scientist, historian, and author. In 1985 he received aMacArthur Genius Grant, and he has writtenhundreds of scientific and popular articles and books. His best known isGuns, Germs, and Steel (1997), which received multiple awards including the1998 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction. In 2005, Diamond was ranked ninth on a poll byProspect andForeign Policy of the world's top 100 public intellectuals.[2]
Originally trained inbiochemistry andphysiology,[3] Diamond has published in many fields, includinganthropology,ecology,geography, andevolutionary biology.[4][5] In 1999, he received theNational Medal of Science, an honor bestowed by thePresident of the United States and theNational Science Foundation. He was a professor of geography atUCLA until his retirement in 2024.[6]Anthropologists have criticized his work as “shallow,” saying he overemphasizesgeography andclimate.[7]
Diamond was born on September 10, 1937 inBoston,Massachusetts. His parents were bothEastern European Jewish immigrants. His father,Louis Diamond, was a physician who emigrated fromChișinău in present-dayMoldova, then known asBessarabia. His mother, Floranée Kaplan, was a teacher, linguist, and concert pianist.[8][9] Diamond began studyingpiano at age six; years later, he would propose to his wife after playingBrahms' Intermezzo in A major for her.[10]
By the age of seven he developed an interest inbirdwatching.[3] This became one of his major life passions and resulted in a number of works published in ornithology.[11] He attended theRoxbury Latin School and studiedbiochemical sciences atHarvard College, graduating in 1958. He later studied atTrinity College, Cambridge, and graduated from Cambridge with a Ph.D. in 1961; his thesis was on the physiology andbiophysics of membranes in thegallbladder.[6][12][13]
After graduation from Cambridge, Diamond returned to Harvard as aJunior Fellow until 1965, and, in 1968, became a professor of physiology atUCLA Medical School. While in his twenties he developed a second, parallel, career in ornithology andecology, specialising inNew Guinea and nearby islands, which he began visiting from 1964.[3] Later, in his fifties, Diamond developed a third career inenvironmental history and became a professor ofgeography at UCLA, his current[update] position.[13] He also teaches atLUISS Guido Carli in Rome.[14] He is a lecturer on thebiodiversity management course at the European Institute of Innovation for Sustainability (EIIS) in Rome.[15] He won theNational Medal of Science in 1999.[16] He has been invited to give twoTED talks, "Why do societies collapse" (2008), and "How societies can grow old better (2013).[17]
Diamond originally specialized in salt absorption in thegallbladder.[12][18] He has also published scholarly works in the fields of ecology and ornithology,[19][20] but is arguably best known for authoring a number of popular science and history books combining topics from diverse fields other than those he has formally studied. Because of this academic diversity, Diamond has been described as a polymath.[21][22]
Diamond has written scores of academic peer-reviewed articles for publications such as the scientific journalNature. He has also written scores ofpopular science articles in publications such asDiscover, as well as several bestselling popular books, notablyThe Third Chimpanzee (1991);Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997, awarded aPulitzer Prize);Collapse (2005),The World Until Yesterday (2012), andUpheaval (2019).For a full list, seeJared Diamond bibliography § Books.
Diamond's first popular book,The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal (1991), examineshuman evolution and its relevance to the modern world, incorporating evidence fromanthropology,evolutionary biology,genetics, ecology, andlinguistics. The book traces how humans evolved to be so different from other animals, despite sharing over 98% of our DNA with our closest animal relatives, the chimpanzees. The book also examines the animal origins of language, art, agriculture, smoking and drug use, and other apparently uniquely human attributes. It was well received by critics and won the 1992Rhône-Poulenc Prize for Science Books[23] and theLos Angeles Times Book Prize.[24]
His second and best known popular science book,Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, was published in 1997. It asks why Eurasian peoples conquered or displacedNative Americans,Australians, and Africans, and not the other way around. It argues that this outcome was not due to genetic advantages of Eurasian peoples themselves but instead to features of the Eurasian continent, in particular, its high diversity of wild plant and animal species suitable fordomestication and its east/west major axis that favored the spread of those domesticates, people, technologies—and diseases—for long distances with little change in latitude.[citation needed]
The first part of the book focuses on reasons why only a few species of wild plants and animals proved suitable for domestication. The second part discusses how local food production based on those domesticates led to the development of dense and stratified human populations, writing, centralized political organization, andepidemic infectious diseases. The third part compares the development of food production and of human societies among different continents and world regions.Guns, Germs, and Steel became an international best-seller, was translated into 33 languages, and received several awards, including aPulitzer Prize, anAventis Prize for Science Books[23] and the 1997Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science.[25] A television documentary series based on the book was produced by theNational Geographic Society in 2005.[26][27]
The book is controversial among anthropologists.[28]
In his third book,Why is Sex Fun?, also published in 1997, Diamond discusses evolutionary factors underlying features ofhuman sexuality that are generally taken for granted but that are highly unusual among our animal relatives. Those features include a long-term pair relationship (marriage), coexistence of economically cooperating pairs within a shared communal territory, provision of parental care by fathers as well as by mothers, having sex in private rather than in public,concealed ovulation, female sexual receptivity encompassing most of themenstrual cycle (including days of infertility),female menopause, and distinctive secondary sexual characteristics.[29]
Diamond's next book,Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, published in 2005, examines a range of past societies in an attempt to identify why they either collapsed or continued to thrive and considers what contemporary societies can learn from these historical examples. As inGuns, Germs, and Steel, he argues against explanations for the failure of past societies based primarily on cultural factors, instead focusing on ecology. Among the societies mentioned in the book are theNorse andInuit ofGreenland, theMaya, theAnasazi, the indigenous people ofRapa Nui (Easter Island), Japan, Haiti, theDominican Republic, and modernMontana.
The book concludes by asking why some societies make disastrous decisions, how big businesses affect the environment, what our principal environmental problems are today, and what individuals can do about those problems. LikeGuns, Germs, and Steel,Collapse was translated into dozens of languages, became an international best-seller, and was the basis of a television documentary produced by the National Geographic Society.[30]Collapse was also nominated for theRoyal Society Prize for Science Books.[23] When it was nominated, Diamond was the only author to have won the award twice previously,[31] though he did not win a third time.
Fifteen archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, and historians from theAmerican Anthropological Association criticized Diamond's methods and conclusions, working together with the larger association to publish the bookQuestioning Collapse as a counter to Diamond's claims.[32] In response, Diamond, as an editor at the time for the journalNature, published an official review in the journal negatively covering the book,[33] without mentioning that the book was a critique of his own work. The authors and the publisher,Cambridge University Press, called out Diamond for hisconflict of interest on the subject.[34][35]
In 2008, Diamond published an article inThe New Yorker entitled "Vengeance Is Ours",[36] describing the role of revenge in tribal warfare inPapua New Guinea. A year later, two indigenous people mentioned in the article filed a lawsuit against Diamond andThe New Yorker, claiming the article defamed them.[37][38][39] In 2013,The Observer reported that the lawsuit "was withdrawn by mutual consent after the sudden death of their lawyer."[9]
In 2010, Diamond co-edited (withJames Robinson)Natural Experiments of History, a collection of seven case studies illustrating themultidisciplinary and comparative approach to the study of history that he advocates. The book's title stems from the fact that it is not possible to study history by the preferred methods of the laboratory sciences, i.e., by controlled experiments comparing replicated human societies as if they were test tubes of bacteria. Instead, one must look at natural experiments in which human societies that are similar in many respects have been historically perturbed. The book's afterword classifies natural experiments, discusses the practical difficulties of studying them, and offers suggestions on how to address those difficulties.[40]
InThe World Until Yesterday, published in 2012, Diamond asks what the western world can learn fromtraditional societies. It surveys 39 traditional small-scale societies of farmers and hunter-gatherers with respect to how they deal with universal human problems. The problems discussed include dividing space, resolving disputes, bringing up children, treatment of elders, dealing with dangers, formulating religions, learning multiple languages, and remaining healthy. The book suggests that some practices of traditional societies could be usefully adopted in the modern industrial world today, either by individuals or else by society as a whole.[citation needed]
InUpheaval: How Nations Cope with Crisis and Change Diamond examines whether nations can find lessons during crises in a way like people do. The nations considered are Finland, Japan, Chile, Indonesia, Germany, Australia, and the U.S.[41] Diamond identifies four modern threats: nuclear weapons,climate change, limited resources, and extreme inequality.[42]
Anand Giridharadas, reviewing forThe New York Times, claimed the book contained many factual inaccuracies.[43]Daniel Immerwahr, reviewing forThe New Republic, reports that Diamond has "jettisoned statistical analysis" and the associated rigour, even by the standards of his earlier books, which have themselves sometimes been challenged on this basis.[44]
Diamond is married to Marie Cohen, granddaughter of Polish politicianEdward Werner. They have twin sons, born in 1987.[6] Although Diamond is a non practicing Jew and has described religion as irrational,[45] he and his wife attendHigh Holiday services.[46]
While Diamond's writings have received considerable praise,[28] they are controversial among anthropologists, with his argumentation having been described as "shallow", with criticism suggesting that Diamond overemphasises the importance of environmental factors like geography and climate over other influences.[28][47][7]
Eastern long-beaked echidnaZaglossus bartoni diamondi was named in honor of Jared Diamond,[60] as was the frogAustrochaperina adamantina.[61]
Media from Commons
Quotations from Wikiquote
Taxa from Wikispecies
Data from Wikidata| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
