Describe your latest project.
My new book is called Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.

I've set myself the modest task of trying to explain the broad pattern of human history, on all the continents, for the last 13,000 years. Why did history take such different evolutionary courses for peoples of different continents? This problem has fascinated me for a long time, but it's now ripe for a new synthesis because of recent advances in many fields seemingly remote from history, including molecular biology, plant and animal genetics and biogeography, archaeology, and linguistics.

Why do you write?
I write because the things that I choose to write about are the most interesting unanswered questions that I can find. I learn everything that I can about them, explain them to myself as clearly as I can, and then explain them to other people in those same words.

Introduce one other author you think people should read, and suggest a good place to start.
I suggest Henry Thoreau, Walden.

What is your idea of absolute happiness?
To be walking in a New Guinea mountain rain forest at an elevation of 5,000 feet, where it is pleasantly cool and there are no mosquitos, and to be surrounded there by a mixed flock of forty-three bird species.

Writers are better liars than other people: true or false? Why, or not?
That's true, and it's also true that writers are better truth-tellers than other people. What distinguishes a writer from other people is, hopefully, better-than-average ability to write. That ability can be used either to report the truth or to report lies.

What fictional character would I like to date, and why?
I would like to date my wife's identical twin sister. My wife doesn't have an identical twin sister, so that's the closest I could get to dating my wife while still dating someone fictitious.

What makes your favorite pair of shoes better than the rest?
My favorite pair of shoes is a pair made of a synthetic material that resembles leather but that is extremely durable. I bought the shoes in June of 1970, and they are still in great shape and I continue to wear them. Because they are so durable, shoe manufacturers discontinued making them; they realized that those shoes made it unnecessary for people to continue to buy new shoes.