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 More Quotes by Jared Diamond More Quotes From Jared Diamond 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. Jared Diamond depressing expectations people What did the last Easter Islander say as he chopped down the last tree? The Easter Islanders didnt have anthropologists. Jared Diamond lasts easter tree Why were there far more species of domesticated animals in Eurasia than in the Americas? The Americas harbor over a thousand native wild mammal species, so you might initially suppose that the Americas offered plenty of starting material for domestication. Jared Diamond mammals animal might Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own? Jared Diamond black white people 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? Jared Diamond gun steel native-american I've always been interested in a lot of things, and a lot of things at the same time, and I always tried to explain them to myself. I ask a lot of questions. Jared Diamond asks literature 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 environmental book years 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 law country years Eurasia ended up with the most domesticated animal species in part because it's the world's largest land mass and offered the most wild species to begin with. Jared Diamond land literature animal Australia is the most isolated continent. Jared Diamond isolated continents australia The single most important problem is our misguided focus on identifying the single most important problem! Jared Diamond focus important problem It's striking that Native Americans evolved no devastating epidemic diseases to give to Europeans, in return for the many devastating epidemic diseases that Indians received from the Old World. Jared Diamond epidemics native-american giving 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 disease literature world 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. Jared Diamond axes animal long 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 effort coffee country 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 government literature forever In short, Europe’s colonization of Africa had nothing to do with differences between European and African peoples themselves, as white racists assume. Rather, it was due to accidents of geography and biogeography—in particular, to the continents’ different areas, axes, and suites of wild plant and animal species. That is, the different historical trajectories of Africa and Europe stem ultimately from differences in real estate. Jared Diamond axes real animal History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves Jared Diamond differences different history Thousands of years ago, humans domesticated every possible large wild mammal species fulfilling all those criteria and worth domesticating, with the result that there have been no valuable additions of domestic animals in recent times, despite the efforts of modern science. Jared Diamond effort animal years 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. Jared Diamond acquisition body world
