Your culture’s no better than mine; we just didn’t have marchland advantage and access to the sea

Seniors may remember this title as summer reading before matriculation. So, freshman fall and senior spring, our undergraduate years bookended by geographical determinism and cultural equivalence. Irony Alert: the lecture is sponsored by the Religion Department, and the email comes from Classics.

Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2004 13:56:47 -0400

From: Erin L Perkins (make list)

Subject: DIAMOND event

To: Edward Bradley , (Verbose)

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Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Rise and Role of Religious Elites in the

Evolution of Human Culture

a lecture by Jared Diamond*

Wednesday, May 5, 2004, 4:00 p.m.

105 Dartmouth Hall

In this lecture Jared Diamond provides an overview of the broad cultural

theory propounded in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel, that human beings

everywhere share the same basic capabilities. Striking differences among

societies spring largely from geographical factors that shape technology,

economic and social life, and forms of cultural expression. One criticial

social and cultural factor is the rise of religious elites. Made possible

by economic stability, religious leadership fosters the use of writing and

other cultural forms that have influenced the advance of human civilization.

This lecture will focus on religion as a consequence and cause of human

social development.

Jared Diamond is a Professor of Geography at UCLA. He is the Pulitzer

Prize-winning author

of the widely acclaimed Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human

Societies, which also won Britain’s 1998 Rhone-Poulenc Science Book Prize.

He is the author of Why is Sex Fun and The Third Chimpanzee, and is

currently preparing a new book, Ecocide. Dr. Diamond is the recipient of a

MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant; The Tyler Prize for Environmental

Achievement; and the National Medal of Science, which is the nation’s

highest civilian award in science.

*This lecture is sponsored by the Department of Religion, as part of its

James and David Orr Memorial Lectures on Culture and Religion, and by the

Dean of the Faculty Lecture Series.

For information, get in touch with Becky Townsend:

rebeca.townsend@dartmouth.edu, or 603-646-1180

—— End of Forwarded Message