Besides justifying the transfer of wealth to kleptocrats, institutionalized religion brings two other important benefits to centralized societies. First, shared ideology or religion helps solve the problem of how unrelated individuals are to live together without killing each other—by providing them with a bond not based on kinship. Second, it gives people a motive, other than genetic self-interest, for sacrificing their lives on behalf of others.

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.

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.

For anyone inclined to caricature environmental history as 'environmental determinism,' the contrasting histories of the Dominican Republic and Haiti provide a useful antidote. Yes, environmental problems do constrain human societies, but the societies' responses also make a difference.

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.

The Anasazi did manage to construct in stone the largest and tallest buildings erected in North America until the Chicago steel girder skyscrapers of the 1880s.

History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves