Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jared Diamond will discuss his widely acclaimed 1998 book “Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies,” during a lecture at 7:30 p.m., Monday, Oct. 21 in Alumni Gymnasium on the Elon University campus. Diamond’s lecture, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the General Studies Department and the Liberal Arts Forum.
In “Guns, Germs and Steel,” Diamond explains the pattern of human history for the last 13,000 years. From a biologist’s perspective, he examines why civilizations rose where they did and why Europeans have dominated the last 500 years of global history.
Diamond, who has worked as an ecologist and biologist on five continents, was a recipient of the 1999 National Medal of Science. He has published more than 200 articles in magazines and journals such as Discover, Natural History, and Nature. He also wrote “The Third Chimpanzee,” which won The Los Angeles Times Book Award for the best science book of 1992.
His field experience includes 17 expeditions to New Guinea and neighboring islands to study ecology and the evolution of birds. His conservationist plan for Indonesian New Guinea’s national park system has been implemented by the government, and he has conducted numerous other field projects for the Indonesian government and the World Wildlife Fund.
The recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, Diamond is professor of physiology at the UCLA School of Medicine.