Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail Or Succeed [B2176]

2005 HCDJ in nice clean condition. In Jared Diamond's follow-up to the Pulitzer-Prize winning Guns, Germs and Steel, the author explores how climate change, the population explosion and political discord create the conditions for the collapse of civilization. Environmental damage, climate change, globalization, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were all factors in the demise of societies around the world, but some found solutions and persisted. As in Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond traces the fundamental pattern of catastrophe, and weaves an all-encompassing global thesis through a series of fascinating historical-cultural narratives. Collapse moves from the Polynesian cultures on Easter Island to the flourishing American civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya and finally to the doomed Viking colony on Greenland. Similar problems face us today and have already brought disaster to Rwanda and Haiti, even as China and Australia are trying to cope in innovative ways. Despite our own society's apparently inexhaustible wealth and unrivaled political power, ominous warning signs have begun to emerge even in ecologically robust areas like Montana. Brilliant, illuminating, and immensely absorbing, Collapse is destined to take its place as one of the essential books of our time, raising the urgent question: How can our world best avoid committing ecological suicide?

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "This was written pre-Trump era America, and at the time, there was a bit of hope going forward -not much hope, but some. We were already on the verge of a global collapse 20 years ago. The short-sighted, America-only perspective prevalent among US politicians has only made matters worse. As Diamond points out, we have to address these issues ourselves. There will be no one - no greater being or alien race - who will come along and save us."; "It really expands your horizons: I had never even heard of some of the past civilizations it covers, and I learned a lot of interesting details about the others. I admire Diamond for his systematic approach. You feel like you're attending a great anthropology / environmental studies course at some famous university."; "It's hard to believe it was only written about 20 years ago. Every problem we have now was clear back then. So unfortunately I cannot share the author's optimism in the last chapter. I wish the book was updated in the last few years..."; "Jared Diamond is a brilliant & influential polymath scientist & historian & a prolific & engaging author."