Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

A distinctive
feature of social and
cultural life at CMC

 

Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis (THIS EVENT IS POSTPONED TO THE FALL.)

Wed, April 20, 2022
Dinner Program
Jared Diamond

Based on his  2019 book Upheaval, Jared Diamond reveals how successful nations recover from crisis through selective change. In an exhaustive comparative study, he shows how seven countries have survived upheavals in the recent past—from US Commodore Perry’s arrival in Japan to the Soviet invasion of Finland to Pinochet’s regime in Chile—through a process of painful self-appraisal and adaptation, identifying patterns in the way that these distinct nations recovered from calamity. Looking ahead to the future, he investigates whether the United States, and the world, are squandering their natural advantages, on a path towards political conflict and decline. Or can we still learn from the lessons of the past? 

As one of CMC’s 75th Anniversary Distinguished Speakers, Professor Diamond will highlight issues in "Civilization and Commerce” one of the three academic collaboration themes of our special 75th Anniversary celebration.

Photo credit: Reed Hutchinson

Jared Diamond is a Pulitzer-prize-winning author of five best-selling books, translated into 38 languages, about human societies and human evolution: Guns, Germs, and Steel, Collapse, Why Is Sex Fun?, The Third Chimpanzee, The World until Yesterday, and Upheaval. As a professor of geography at the University of California at Los Angeles, he is known for his breadth of interests, which includes conducting research and teaching in three other fields: the biology of New Guinea birds, digestive physiology, and conservation biology. His prizes and honors include the U.S. National Medal of Science (America's highest civilian award in science), the Pulitzer Prize for Non-fiction, the Tyler Prize for Environmental Science, the MacArthur Genius Award, the Dickson Prize in Science, and election to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. He is a director of World Wildlife Fund/U.S. and of Conservation International. As a biological explorer, his most widely publicized finding was his rediscovery, at the top of New Guinea’s remote Foja Mountains, of the long-lost Golden-fronted Bowerbird, previously known only from four specimens found in a Paris feather shop in 1895.

Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum

Claremont McKenna College
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Claremont, CA 91711

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