We study the injustices of history for the same reason that we study genocide, and for the same reason that psychologists study the minds of murderers and rapists... to understand how those evil things came about.

F. 2005 Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. PMID 3762700.

Originally trained in physiology Diamond's work is known for drawing from a variety of fields including anthropology ecology geography and evolutionary biology. He is currently Professor of Geography at the University of California Los Angeles.