WILLIAMSBURG, Va., Sept. 15, 2008 – Jared Diamond, author of “Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies,” will speak at Jamestown Settlement at 7 p.m., Saturday, October 11, on the subject of his Pulitzer Prize-winning book.
Diamond asserts that the main international issues of our time are legacies of processes that began during the early modern period in which civilizations that had experienced an extensive amount of “human development” began to intrude upon technologically less advanced civilizations around the world. He argues that the gaps in power and technology between human societies originate in environmental differences.
A professor of geography at the University of California, Los Angeles, Diamond is a recipient of the National Medal of Science. “Guns, Germs, and Steel,” published in 1997, was adapted for a public television series. His best-selling “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed,” published in 2005, inspired a museum exhibit.
Seating is limited, and advance reservations are required for the free public lecture, at (757) 253-4415 or rsvp.lecture@jyf.virginia.gov. Jamestown Settlement, a state-operated museum of 17th-century Virginia, is located at State Route 31 and the Colonial Parkway just southwest of Williamsburg.
