Jared Diamond

Author Jared M. Diamond ’58 has spent years making trips to the wilderness of New Guinea, performing research for books like his Pulitzer-Prize winning “Guns, Germs, and Steel.” And during his time in Cambridge as an undergraduate, he brought the wilderness to Harvard.

One year, the future UCLA professor smuggled a flying squirrel and an opossum into his dorm room, Diamond’s son Joshua said in a recent interview.

The opossum damaged the furniture and eventually created such a strong odor that nobody was willing to come clean the room.

“Some people might keep a fish or a rabbit or a cat,” Joshua said. “But my father had to smuggle in strange and exotic animals as pets.”

Diamond, his freshman roommate Alfred M. Derrow ’58 remembered, extended some of that boldness outside the walls of his dorm room as well. During one of the era’s “freshman riots” (mostly non-violent affairs), Diamond filled up water balloons and took aim at the police below.

The officer’s offense is lost to history. “I don’t even remember what the issue was,” Derrow said.

Today, Diamond continues to demonstrate daring, though of a different sort, combining the study of evolutionary biology, physiology, and geography to explain our world and history.

CLASSICAL BEGINNINGS

Diamond entered Harvard College with a classics scholarship and a determination to go into medicine like his physician father.

Although he concentrated in physiology, Diamond entered the Latin poetry translation competition every year and won three years in a row.

In an interview with the magazine strategy+business, Diamond, a former Winthrop House resident, recalled his classics teacher’s prediction that he would someday “unify the sciences and humanities.”

Diamond’s freshman year roommate Alfred M. Derrow ’58 recalled feeling “overwhelmed and somewhat intimidated” when he first met Diamond. He described the young Diamond as being a brilliant student who listened to classical music and got up before class to go bird watching.

“I thought I was pretty bright until I came up against him,” Derrow said. “The only thing he took at a level below mine was chemistry...He caught up to me in two weeks.”

After graduating, Diamond went on to earn a Ph.D. in physiology and membrane biophysics from the University of Cambridge in 1961. He returned to Harvard as a member of the Society of Fellows in 1962.

In 1966, he moved across the country to teach physiology at UCLA, where he has remained for over 40 years. While investigating the membrane physiology of the intestine in the laboratory, Diamond also pursued a separate interest in evolutionary biology and the study of New Guinea birds.

In the early 1980s, Diamond decided to bridge these two fields of study by looking at how ecology prompts physiological evolution.

He also wrote for popular science magazines such as Natural History and Discover and began working on topics in human history that were more accessible to the general public.

PUBLISHING DIAMOND

Diamond incorporated his research into his books, such as “The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal” and “Why is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality.”

His most famous work, ”Guns, Germs, and Steel,” explores biological and geographical reasons for why Eurasian civilizations have so often exerted dominance over other civilizations.

Published in 1998, the prize-winning book has been translated into 25 languages.

The book’s influence was also felt close to home—Diamond’s son Joshua was required to read the book for a high school class.

“We had to read it over the summer and annotate it,” he says. “It was kind of awkward.”

One of Diamond’s two sons, Joshua has read all of his father’s books, with the exception of “Why is Sex Fun?”

“I have refused up to this day to read it,” the younger Diamond says. “I’m a fan, which is a good thing I guess because it’s weird if you don’t like your dad’s work.”

Since the early 1990s, Diamond has focused on the study of environmental history and worked as a professor in UCLA’s Geography department. His most recent book, “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed,” was published in 2005.

Gregory S. Okin, a fellow geography professor at UCLA, describes Diamond’s work as “very geographical” since it explores the way things relate to each other in space.

“I find it personally fascinating,” he added.

Diamond’s intellectual curiosity is not limited to his professional career. In his spare time, he often studies new languages. He can currently communicate in 13 languages.

In addition to his Pulitzer, Diamond has received numerous honors including a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant, the Phi Beta Kappa Science Book Prize, and the National Science Medal.

“He was probably the smartest person I’ve ever known, at least known well,” Derrow said. “I’ve known some very bright people, but he’s still above them all.”

—Staff writer Sue Lin can be reached at suelin@fas.harvard.edu.