Jared Diamond & Guns, Germs, and Steel

Jared Diamond was born in Boston, MA to a Jewish family. His father, Louis K. Diamond, was a physician and his mother, Flora Kaplan, was a teacher, musician, and linguist. He went to Harvard College and graduated in 1958 with a Bachelor of Arts and in 1961 he graduated from University of Cambridge with a PhD on the physiology and biophysics of membranes in the gall bladder. In 1968, he became Professor of Physiology at UCLA Medical School. While in his twenties, he developed another career in ornithology and ecology. In his fifties, he developed a third career in environmental history and became Professor of Geography at UCLA, which is his current position. In 1999, he was awarded the National Medal of Science and an honorary doctorate by Westfield State University in 2009. He is married to Marie Diamond and has twin sons that were born in 1987. 

The book Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies was written by Jared Diamond and was published in 1997. Since then it has sold more than 1.5 million copies. In 1998, it won the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction and the Aventis Prize for Best Science Book. The book explains why Eurasian civilizations have survived and conquered others, while arguing against the idea that Eurasian dominance and power is due to any form of Eurasian intellectual, moral or inherent genetic superiority. In the book, Diamond argues that the gaps in power and technology between human societies originate in environmental differences. When cultural or genetic differences favored Eurasians, he says that the advantages occurred because of the influence of geography on societies and cultures, and had nothing to do with anything found in their genes.