The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? (83 page)

I acknowledge with pleasure my debts to many colleagues and friends for their help with this book. I owe special thanks to eight friends who critiqued the entire manuscript and poured time and effort into suggestions for improving it: my wife Marie Cohen, Timothy Earle, Paul Ehrlich, Alan Grinnell, Barry Hewlett, Melvin Konner, Michael Shermer, and Meg Taylor. Those same thanks and more are due to my editors Wendy Wolf at Viking Penguin (New York) and Stefan McGrath at Penguin Group (London), and to my agent John Brockman, who not only read the whole manuscript but also helped in innumerable ways at every stage from the book’s conception through all stages of its production.

Michelle Fisher-Casey typed and retyped the whole manuscript, many times. Boratha Yeang tracked down sources. Ruth Mandel tracked down photographs, and Matt Zebrowski prepared the maps.

I presented much of the material of this book to my classes of undergraduates at the University of California at Los Angeles, where I teach in the Geography Department. Those students constantly confronted me with fresh and stimulating outlooks. The department’s faculty members and staff have provided me with a constantly supportive environment. At a workshop that James Robinson and I co-organized at Harvard University, participants brainstormed about many topics of this book.

Earlier versions of some paragraphs or material of several chapters
appeared as articles in
Natural History
magazine,
Discover
magazine,
Nature
magazine, the
New York Review of Books
, and
The New Yorker
.

Over the last half-century, thousands of New Guineans, Indonesians, and Solomon Islanders shared with me their insights, life stories, and world views, and lived with me the experiences that I relate in this book. My debt to them for enriching my life is enormous. I have dedicated this book to one such friend, Meg Taylor (Dame Meg Taylor), who was born in New Guinea’s Wahgi Valley and grew up in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Her mother was Yerima Manamp Masi of the Baiman Tsenglap clan, while her father was the Australian patrol officer James Taylor, leader of the famous Bena-to-Hagen patrol in 1933 and the 1938–1939 Hagen-to-Sepik patrol. After studying law at the University of Papua New Guinea and Melbourne University (Australia), Meg became private secretary to the first Chief Minister and then Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, Sir Michael Somare, as the country transitioned from self-government to independence in 1975. She practised law in Papua New Guinea, served as a member of the Law Reform Commission, and pursued further studies in law at Harvard as a Fulbright Scholar. Meg was Ambassador of Papua New Guinea to the United States, Mexico, and Canada from 1989 to 1994. She has served on the boards of international conservation and research organizations; Papua New Guinea companies in the natural resources, financial, and agricultural sectors; and companies listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. In 1999 Meg was appointed to the post of Vice President Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman of the World Bank Group. Meg is the mother of her daughter Taimil, and aunt to many young family members in the Highlands. She will return home upon completion of her current World Bank assignment in Washington, D.C.

Many friends and colleagues generously helped me in connection with individual chapters, by sending me articles and references, telling me of their experiences and conclusions, talking through ideas, and criticizing my chapter draft. They include: Gregory Anderson, Stephen Beckerman, Ellen Bialystok, David Bishop, Daniel Carper, Elizabeth Cashdan, Barbara Dean, Daniel Dennett, Joel Deutsch, Michael Goran, Mark Grady, K. David Harrison, Kristen Hawkes, Karl Heider, Dan Henry, Bonnie Hewlett, William Irons, Francine Kaufman, Neal Kaufman, Laurel Kearns, Philip Klemmer, Russell Korobkin, Ágnes Kovács, Michael Krauss, Sabine Kue
gler, David Laitin, Francesca Leardini, Steven LeBlanc, Graham Mac-Gregor, Robert McKinley, Angella Meierzag, Kenneth Mesplay, Richard Mills, Viswanatha Mohan, Elizabeth Nabel, Gary Nabel, Claire Panosian, Joseph Peckham, Lloyd Peckham, Dale Price, David Price, Samuel Price, Lynda Resnick, Jerome Rotter, Roger Sant, Richard Shweder, Charles Taylor, Minna Taylor, Eugene Volokh, Douglas White, Polly Wiessner, David Sloan Wilson, Lana Wilson, Bruce Winterhalder, Richard Wrangham, and Paul Zimmet.

Support for these studies was generously provided by the National Geographic Society, Conservation International, Skip and Heather Brittenham, Lynda and Stewart Resnick, the Summit Foundation, and the Eve and Harvey Masonek and Samuel F. Heyman and Eve Gruber Heyman 1981 Trust Undergraduate Research Scholars Fund.

To all these people and organizations, I express my heartfelt thanks.