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 DiamondTwo types of choices seem to me to have been crucial in tipping the outcomes [of the various societies' histories] towards success or failure: long-term planning and willingness to reconsider core values. On reflection we can also recognize the crucial role of these same two choices for the outcomes of our individual lives.
Jared DiamondThe history of interactions among disparate peoples is what shaped the modern world through conquest, epidemics and genocide. Those collisions created reverberations that have still not died down after many centuries, and that are actively continuing in some of the world's most troubled areas.
Jared DiamondToday Charles Darwin is best known for establishing the fact of evolution and for recognizing the major role of natural selection in driving it.
Jared DiamondThe King's 28 letters have been described by scholars as the world's best alphabet and the most scientific system of writing.
Jared DiamondTo science we owe dramatic changes in our smug self-image. Astronomy taught us that our Earth is not the center of the universe, but merely one of nine planets circling one of billions of stars. From biology we learned that humans were not specially created by God but evolved along with tens of millions of other species.
Jared Diamond