“The infectious diseases that regularly visited crowded Eurasian societies, and to which many Eurasians consequently developed immune or genetic resistance, included all of history's most lethal killers: smallpox, measles, influenza, plague, tuberculosis, typhus, cholera, malaria, and others.”

— Jared Diamond , book Guns, Germs, and Steel

Source: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (1997), p. 357

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Jared Diamond 33

American scientist and author 1937

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Variant: Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.
Context: It is quite possible to be both. I look upon myself as a man. Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.

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“The infectious diseases that regularly visited crowded Eurasian societies, and to which many Eurasians consequently developed immune or genetic resistance, included all of history's most lethal killers: smallpox, measles, influenza, plague, tuberculosis, typhus, cholera, malaria, and others.”

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