Beyond the Book: Background information when reading Collapse

Beyond the Book

This article relates to Collapse

"I've set myself the modest task of trying to explain the broad pattern of human history, on all the continents, for the last 13,000 years. Why did history take such different evolutionary courses for peoples of different continents? This problem has fascinated me for a long time, but it's now ripe for a new synthesis because of recent advances in many fields seemingly remote from history, including molecular biology, plant and animal genetics and biogeography, archaeology, and linguistics....." - Jared Diamond

Read the full text of Diamond's talk to The Edge Foundation - an interesting looking organization that 'seeks to promote inquiry into and discussion of intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and literary issues, as well as to work for the intellectual and social achievement of society'.  Its membership includes Jared Diamond, Richard Dawkins plus many other important looking people.

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This article relates to Collapse. It first ran in the January 4, 2006 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.