12 Dec 2012 ... An Evening with Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author Jared Diamond: ... Germs, and
Steel, Collapse, Why Is Sex Fun?, and The Third Chimpanzee.
Press Release For Immediate Release: Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2012 Contacts:
Sharon Grimm, Communications Coordinator, 708-697-6916,
[email protected] Rebecca Teasdale, Assistant Director for Public Services and Programs, 708-697-6913,
[email protected]
An Evening with Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author Jared Diamond: Sharing Stories from “The World Until Yesterday,” Jan. 10 at Unity Temple Oak Park, IL - Jared Diamond, the Pulitzer Prize-winning and best-selling author of “Guns, Germs, and Steel” comes to Unity Temple, 875 Lake St., Oak Park, on Thursday, Jan. 10, at 7 p.m. to share stories from “The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?” A reception and signing with Jared Diamond will be held at Oak Park Public Library, 834 Lake St., immediately following his presentation. The evening is presented by the Friends of the Oak Park Public Library, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that raises funds for the 5-Star Oak Park Public Library. Unity Temple doors open at 6 p.m. Purchase tickets online at http://jareddiamondinoakpark.eventbrite.com/ Tickets are $21.50 and include $10 off purchase of Diamond's new book, The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies, available for sale from The Book Table on the night of the event. Ten percent of book purchase proceeds will be donated to the Friends of the Oak Park Public Library, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. In his latest book, Jared surveys the differences between “traditional” societies and industrial or postindustrial societies, with an eye to one question: what can we learn from the former that can make the world we live in a better place for all of us? Are people basically all the same, everywhere? “Not exactly,” says Jared Diamond, in his rich new book, the successor to his multimillion-copy bestsellers “Guns, Germs and Steel” and “Collapse.” The differences are profound between so-called “traditional” societies and industrial or post-industrial societies. We count differently, select our wives or husbands differently, treat our parents and children differently, view danger differently, eat different foods, have different kinds of social and political organization, and wage war or resolve conflicts differently. – more –
Today, citizens of industrial states take for granted metal, writing, airplanes, police and government, overweight people, meeting strangers without fear, heterogeneous populations, and so on. But all those features of modern human societies are relatively new in human history. For most of the 6,000,000 years since the proto-human and proto-chimpanzee evolutionary lines diverged from each other, human societies had none of these things. About Jared Diamond Diamond is the author of four best-selling books, translated into 38 languages, about human societies and human evolution: Guns, Germs, and Steel, Collapse, Why Is Sex Fun?, and The Third Chimpanzee. As a professor of geography at UCLA (University of California at Los Angeles), he has also conducted research and taught 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, the Pulitzer-prize for nonfiction, the Tyler Prize for Environmental Science, and election to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Diamond 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. About the Friends of the Oak Park Public Library Since 1948, the Friends of the Oak Park Public Library have been building bridges between library and community, and raising funds to help sponsor library programs and services. Learn more at http://oppl.org/support/friends-library. About Unity Temple The American Institute of Architects named Unity Temple, opened in 1909, one of Wright’s most influential buildings. In 1971, the U.S. Department of Interior designated Unity Temple as a National Historic Landmark. Learn more at http://www.unitytemple-utrf.org/ ### Founded in 1902, Oak Park Public Library’s mission is to empower, entertain and engage its community with opportunities for lifelong learning. The library serves 50,000 Oak Park, Illinois residents and, as a member of Illinois’ SWAN consortium, gives cardholders access to more than 1 million titles for checkout. The large collection includes fiction and nonfiction titles, audiobooks, movies, CDs, video games, magazines, newspapers, reference materials, online resources, and local history and author information. Through its website, the library provides 24-hour librarian reference service, ebooks, movies, music, online subscriptions, continuing education courses, digital archives and more. In addition, the Main Library is known for its impressive collection of permanent artwork, including pieces by local artists. For more information, visit oppl.org or call 708-383-8200.
