HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
•
DECEMBER 2012
91
HEMISPHERES:
You’re just returning
from some far-flung place, right?
DIAMOND:
I’m coming back from
Sumatra. I was doing a bird project.
I’ve worked on birds in the New
Guinea area for a long time, but it
was my first time seeing and explor-
ing Sumatra.
HEMISPHERES
:
So ornithology is
your principal line of scientific inquiry
these days?
DIAMOND:
I wouldn’t say that. I’m
interested in lots of things, some
of which started out separately. So
ornithology and evolutionary biology
started out as a separate interest.
Physiology, which is what I got my
Ph.D. in, started out as a separate
interest. Geography was a separate
interest. But gradually the interests
merged. What I do now could be
called environmental history or
comparative geography, which pulls
together languages and geography
and biology and birds.
HEMISPHERES:
Whew, that’s a lot of
stuff to keep track of. Still, you manage
to pack much of it into
The World Until
Yesterday
.
There isn’t much birding in
the book, but looking for birds drew you
into some remarkable places.
DIAMOND:
The bird became a career
for me. I trained in physiology but
ironically ended up be er known for
my work in evolutionary biology and
birds. My take on human societies is
partly derived fromwhat I’ve learned
studying birds.
HEMISPHERES:
Well, men are all
little roosters at heart, right? Some-
times I picture you looking at humans
the same way you look at birds,
through binoculars and at a distance,
but this book is more personal than
the others. You actually show up in the
middle of it.
DIAMOND:
Partly I’m standing back
and partly I’m in the middle of it.
In the chapter on danger, I write
about an accident in which I nearly
drowned. A green heron and a couple
of terns flew overhead and I said to
myself, “Oh, look, there goes a green
heron.” This was right before I caught
myself and said, “Jared, wake up, you
may not be alive in a fewminutes.”
HEMISPHERES:
Still, that couldn’t have
been the most dangerous situation
you’ve found yourself in. After all,
you’ve spent a lot of time in places that
are pretty far removed fromWestern
ideas of comfort and safety.
DIAMOND:
Yes, there have been a fair
number of times when I was uncer-
tain whether I was going to be alive
the next day. But I’ve learned how
to anesthetize myself and continue
plowing ahead as if I’m going to come
out alive, even if it looks really bleak
at the moment.
HEMISPHERES:
That probably adds to
what you call in the book “constructive
paranoia,” which is fear that might help
you stay alive.
DIAMOND:
That’s true. This morning
I took a shower, and the shower in our
house does not have enough of those
sticky strips to make it safe. One of
my wife’s best friends, a woman in
her 80s, just fell and broke her hip,
and it’s not clear whether that’s going
to mean the end of a happy lifetime.
So now I am paranoid about slipping
in showers.
HEMISPHERES:
Done in by a bathtub—
that would be a twist, given where
you’ve been.
DIAMOND:
Yes, it would be ironic if I
were to end my career not by falling
off a mountain in New Guinea, but by
slipping in the shower.
HEMISPHERES:
You could have easily
perished in one of the tribal wars that
you studied at close range for the
book. Some of those passages are
very disturbing.
DIAMOND:
There are lots of things
about traditional warfare that come
as a big surprise to all of us who are
used to modern warfare, and they’re
really upse ing when we learn
about them. For example, there isn’t
a distinction between combatants
and noncombatants. I’ve had New
Guineans who have been involved in
tribal warfare tell me explicitly, “Of
course we kill children, because those
children may grow up into our enemy
someday. If you don’t, how stupid
can you be?”
HEMISPHERES:
It’s a practical judgment.
DIAMOND:
For us moderns in state
society, we’ve
CONTINUED ON PAGE 152
»
K. DAVID BISHOP (NEW GUINEA, BORNEO)
JARED DIAMOND
BY THE NUMBERS
Age
75
Languages spoken
12
Pulitzer Prizes won
1
Books authored
9
New York Times
bestsellers
2
Copies sold of most popular title,
Guns, Germs and Steel
1.5
MILLION
Miles that film crew traveled
for
Guns, Germs and Steel
TV series
285,000
Years of human civilization
spanned in TV series
13,000
Minutes in TV series
163
