Interviews are the bread and butter of To the Best of Our Knowledge, and over the years I’ve been curious and puzzled by how I remember particular interviews I’ve done. Some stick with me for months and others largely disappear into the deep recesses of my memory. Then there are a few that I remember vividly long after the interview itself. My last interview with biologist Jared Diamond is one example.
Diamond is famous for “Guns, Germs and Steel,” his blockbuster book about why European nations conquered and displaced the people of Africa and America - and not the other way around. But the book I remember best is “The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?”
Diamond’s real passion is birds. He’s been wandering through the remote forests of New Guinea, looking for birds, since the 1960s. He has also gotten to know many indigenous people and what he has learned about conflict resolution, child-rearing and aging is fascinating. And from a Western perspective, what he says about the danger of meeting strangers is truly eye-opening. It reveals a great deal about the history of tribalism and the emergence of the modern state.
—Steve