Tuesday, October 11, 2005 at 7:30 p.m.order tickets |
Jared Diamond in New Guinea Photo Courtesy NGT&F
In his Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller, Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (1998), Jared Diamond poses a simple question: Why were Europeans and Asians able to conquer the indigenous peoples of Africa, the Americas, Australia, and the South Pacific, instead of being conquered themselves? Diamond argues that Eurasia’s success had nothing to do with cultural or biological superiority, but rather was the result of geographic variables—access to resources, the impact of weapons and disease, and development of technologies—symbolized by the power of guns, germs, and steel. In his most recent book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Diamond extends his theories about the collapse of past societies to the present, and explores what modern society can do differently to avoid a similar fate.
Jared Diamond’s challenging and controversial ideas—sometimes summarized as “geography as destiny”—have inspired a three-part series, “Guns, Germs and Steel,” produced by National Geographic and airing on PBS in July. The series spans five continents and uses epic historical reenactments to illustrate Diamond’s theories, explaining why societies in different parts of the world developed differently, and why some became conquerors and others the conquered.
A recipient of one of the MacArthur Foundation’s “genius” grants, Jared Diamond is professor of geography and environmental health studies at UCLA. He is also the author of Why Is Sex Fun?: The Evolution of Human Sexuality (1997), and The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal (1992). In this presentation featuring excerpts from the National Geographic-PBS series, Diamond will offer a whirlwind tour across 13,000 years of history, introducing his thought-provoking theory about why civilizations rise and fall, and challenging us to apply these insights to the present.
Pricing: () Series tickets start at $70 (members), $84 (nonmembers), and $48 (students/educators). Single tickets (on sale September 15, 2005) start at $22 (members), $24 (nonmembers), and $15 (students/educators).
