Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
by: Jared Diamond
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Amazon.com Review:
Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed is the glass-half-empty follow-up to his Pulitzer Prize-winning Guns, Germs, and Steel. While Guns, Germs, and Steel explained the geographic and environmental reasons why some human populations have flourished, Collapse uses the same factors to examine why ancient societies, including the Anasazi of the American Southwest and the Viking colonies of Greenland, as well as modern ones such as Rwanda, have fallen apart. Not every collapse has an environmental origin, but an eco-meltdown is often the main catalyst, he argues, particularly when combined with society's response to (or disregard for) the coming disaster. Still, right from the outset of Collapse, the author makes clear that this is not a mere environmentalist's diatribe. He begins by setting the book's main question in the small communities of present-day Montana as they face a decline in living standards and a depletion of natural resources. Once-vital mines now leak toxins into the soil, while prion diseases infect some deer and elk and older hydroelectric dams have become decrepit. On all these issues, and particularly with the hot-button topic of logging and wildfires, Diamond writes with equanimity.
Because he's addressing such significant issues within a vast span of time, Diamond can occasionally speak too briefly and assume too much, and at times his shorthand remarks may cause careful readers to raise an eyebrow. But in general, Diamond provides fine and well-reasoned historical examples, making the case that many times, economic and environmental concerns are one and the same. With Collapse, Diamond hopes to jog our collective memory to keep us from falling for false analogies or forgetting prior experiences, and thereby save us from potential devastations to come. While it might seem a stretch to use medieval Greenland and the Maya to convince a skeptic about the seriousness of global warming, it's exactly this type of cross-referencing that makes Collapse so compelling. --Jennifer Buckendorff
Product Description:
In his runaway bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond brilliantly examined the circumstances that allowed Western civilizations to dominate much of the world. Now he probes the other side of the equation: What caused some of the great civilizations of the past to fall into ruin, and what can we learn from their fates? Using a vast historical and geographical perspective ranging from Easter Island and the Maya to Viking Greenland and modern Montana, Diamond traces a fundamental pattern of environmental catastropheone whose warning signs can be seen in our modern world and that we ignore at our peril. Blending the most recent scientific advances into a narrative that is impossible to put down, Collapse exposes the deepest mysteries of the past even as it offers hope for the future.
Diamonds most influential gift may be his ability to write about geopolitical and environmental systems in ways that dont just educate and provoke, but entertain. The Seattle Times
Extremely persuasive . . . replete with fascinating stories, a treasure trove of historical anecdotes [and] haunting statistics. The Boston Globe
Extraordinary in erudition and originality, compelling in [its] ability to relate the digitized pandemonium of the present to the hushed agrarian sunrises of the far past. The New York Times Book Review
Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed is the glass-half-empty follow-up to his Pulitzer Prize-winning Guns, Germs, and Steel. While Guns, Germs, and Steel explained the geographic and environmental reasons why some human populations have flourished, Collapse uses the same factors to examine why ancient societies, including the Anasazi of the American Southwest and the Viking colonies of Greenland, as well as modern ones such as Rwanda, have fallen apart. Not every collapse has an environmental origin, but an eco-meltdown is often the main catalyst, he argues, particularly when combined with society's response to (or disregard for) the coming disaster. Still, right from the outset of Collapse, the author makes clear that this is not a mere environmentalist's diatribe. He begins by setting the book's main question in the small communities of present-day Montana as they face a decline in living standards and a depletion of natural resources. Once-vital mines now leak toxins into the soil, while prion diseases infect some deer and elk and older hydroelectric dams have become decrepit. On all these issues, and particularly with the hot-button topic of logging and wildfires, Diamond writes with equanimity.
Because he's addressing such significant issues within a vast span of time, Diamond can occasionally speak too briefly and assume too much, and at times his shorthand remarks may cause careful readers to raise an eyebrow. But in general, Diamond provides fine and well-reasoned historical examples, making the case that many times, economic and environmental concerns are one and the same. With Collapse, Diamond hopes to jog our collective memory to keep us from falling for false analogies or forgetting prior experiences, and thereby save us from potential devastations to come. While it might seem a stretch to use medieval Greenland and the Maya to convince a skeptic about the seriousness of global warming, it's exactly this type of cross-referencing that makes Collapse so compelling. --Jennifer Buckendorff
Product Description:
In his runaway bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond brilliantly examined the circumstances that allowed Western civilizations to dominate much of the world. Now he probes the other side of the equation: What caused some of the great civilizations of the past to fall into ruin, and what can we learn from their fates? Using a vast historical and geographical perspective ranging from Easter Island and the Maya to Viking Greenland and modern Montana, Diamond traces a fundamental pattern of environmental catastropheone whose warning signs can be seen in our modern world and that we ignore at our peril. Blending the most recent scientific advances into a narrative that is impossible to put down, Collapse exposes the deepest mysteries of the past even as it offers hope for the future.
Diamonds most influential gift may be his ability to write about geopolitical and environmental systems in ways that dont just educate and provoke, but entertain. The Seattle Times
Extremely persuasive . . . replete with fascinating stories, a treasure trove of historical anecdotes [and] haunting statistics. The Boston Globe
Extraordinary in erudition and originality, compelling in [its] ability to relate the digitized pandemonium of the present to the hushed agrarian sunrises of the far past. The New York Times Book Review
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: 
- Collapse
In Collapse, Jared Diamond explains the failure or survival of societies spanning thousands of years and diverse geographies. Despite the subtitle, as he examines the complex ecological and social systems, it seems that, knowing what they did, there is little the 'failed' societies could have chosen to do differently. The answer to why some make it and some don't occasionally comes down to simple geography, but most often it has to do with how they adapt to their environment, not realizing that their ... Read More
Rating: - Great book
I needed this for a class and it came very quick, in great shape, and it's a terrific book for the price.
Rating: 
- Even Diamond Can Write Compost
The esteemed Jared Diamond, author of one of the most insightful and profound books of the previous decade: Guns Germs and Steel, tried to break the wave of his success on Collapse, a book about the failure of societies due to a laundry-list of (mostly environmental) issues.
It's too soon to render a verdict on the bearded Professor (unlike Paul Ehrlich and Rachel Carson) since he wisely chose topics which cannot be gauged within a human lifetime but the book itself was a real steaming pile ... Read More
Rating: - Good overview of the relationship between the environment & politics
This book makes an good and convincing case for the importance of environmental issues as they affect the well being of all societies developed and developing.
The book is centered around the collapse of past societies, although this is only one of four sections in the book. The first section concerns the environmental problems of Montana to give the reader a personal perspective of societies interaction with its environmental problems. The second section gives the book its title and Diamond ... Read More
Rating: - Warms up after the first couple chapters
Not quite as good as his best-known book, "Guns, Germs and Steel", mostly because the first 50 pages are about Montana.Who cares about Montana?I barely even know where it is.But after that it gets wicked awesome.Unfortunately you can't really skip the Montana parts - too many concepts are introduced that you'll need later - but hey, it's Diamond; you can suck it up for 50 pages.Vikings come later.Vikings!
- CollapseIn Collapse, Jared Diamond explains the failure or survival of societies spanning thousands of years and diverse geographies. Despite the subtitle, as he examines the complex ecological and social systems, it seems that, knowing what they did, there is little the 'failed' societies could have chosen to do differently. The answer to why some make it and some don't occasionally comes down to simple geography, but most often it has to do with how they adapt to their environment, not realizing that their ... Read More
- Great bookI needed this for a class and it came very quick, in great shape, and it's a terrific book for the price.
- Even Diamond Can Write CompostThe esteemed Jared Diamond, author of one of the most insightful and profound books of the previous decade: Guns Germs and Steel, tried to break the wave of his success on Collapse, a book about the failure of societies due to a laundry-list of (mostly environmental) issues.
It's too soon to render a verdict on the bearded Professor (unlike Paul Ehrlich and Rachel Carson) since he wisely chose topics which cannot be gauged within a human lifetime but the book itself was a real steaming pile ... Read More
- Good overview of the relationship between the environment & politicsThis book makes an good and convincing case for the importance of environmental issues as they affect the well being of all societies developed and developing.
The book is centered around the collapse of past societies, although this is only one of four sections in the book. The first section concerns the environmental problems of Montana to give the reader a personal perspective of societies interaction with its environmental problems. The second section gives the book its title and Diamond ... Read More
- Warms up after the first couple chaptersNot quite as good as his best-known book, "Guns, Germs and Steel", mostly because the first 50 pages are about Montana.Who cares about Montana?I barely even know where it is.But after that it gets wicked awesome.Unfortunately you can't really skip the Montana parts - too many concepts are introduced that you'll need later - but hey, it's Diamond; you can suck it up for 50 pages.Vikings come later.Vikings!
