الانهيار

كنت قد قرأت كتاب جاريد دايموند والذي حصل على جائزة البوليتزر (أسلحة، جراثيم وفولاذ) قبل سنوات، وأعجبت به كثيراً، كانت دراسة جريئة تحاول فهم الأسباب البيئية الكامنة وراء صعود حضارات معينة وتفوقها على حضارات أخرى.

في هذا الكتاب يعكس دايموند الوضع ويحاول دراسة كيف تتداعى حضارات معينة وتنهار بسبب تدميرها لبيئتها، وهو يعرض مجموعة متفرقة من الحضارات المعروفة أو المعزولة والتي مارست بلا وعي تدميراً واسعاً لبيئتها ووصلت في النهاية إلى انهيار سريع لحضارتها، كما يعرض في المقابل حضارات تنبهت لتدهور البيئة فقامت بإجراءات ناجحة للحفاظ عليها واستدامتها واستطاعت البقاء في بيئات فقيرة جداً.

كلا كتابي دايموند واجبي القراءة لكل مهتم بالتاريخ والبيئة والعلم، فدايموند يقدم هذا كله بأسلوب جميل جداً وممتع.

A great, readable book about past and present societies, their decisions regarding societal and environmental challenges that led to their collapse or survival.

On the side, I found the book very informative about the history of the societies. I particularly enjoy those about the Greenland's Norse(Viking). This book inspire me to expand my reading to those about archaeology and history.

One important lesson: ability and willingness to change core values (religious or secular) proved to be essential for survival. Emigrating to live in a faraway country myself and seeing common problems of integration among the immigrants in Europe, I can relate to some of the past societies' experience in which they kept clinging to the past habits and identity. That may create difficulties to both migrant and host population or as in the case of Greenland's Viking, lead to their collapse.

Onvan : Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed - Nevisande : Jared Diamond - ISBN : 143036556 - ISBN13 : 9780143036555 - Dar 608 Safhe - Saal e Chap : 2004

Not as good as "Guns, germs and steel" that preceded it, but definitely an interesting book. Sometimes the author seems to lose a bit of his focus on the main topic and wanders around moralizing, tending to wishful thinking, but that is certainly not a reason to discard the book. He could also be "accused of leniency" (sic) toward large industries, but I would not lightly condemn the author.

This is an exhaustive and exhausting read. Should’ve been tightened up and trimmed down, not only did I get tired of the meandering but I got worn down from getting machine-gunned with an avalanche of what I considered often superfluous details. Still, I thought it was very good, the historical examples of collapse (and also the examples of societies that successfully changed to avoid disaster) were interesting. It put the contemporary analysis/problems we face in perspective.

I remember reading Guns, Germs, Steel and while I enjoyed it Diamond's geographical determinism was tiresome and I suspect overplayed. In this book he focuses on environmental stresses and issues playing a role in collapsing societies. I think he does a good job in explaining the multitude of factors beyond this arena, so it isn’t quite as one-tracked and only focused on environmental determinism. I think environment is crucial but it’s important to add proper qualifiers and try to not overplay your thesis.

My impression is anthropologists really seem to have an ax to grind with Diamond. Always interesting to see what people from certain fields have to say about popular books written about their domain (especially those books written by someone who isn’t part of their tribe). I haven’t read specific critiques of this book just remember some articles I’ve seen where anthropologists have absolutely smashed Diamond for his other work. I imagine some of their critique is right but it seems overly harsh, a bit overdone leading me to wonder if they aren’t just trying to protect their turf. Anyhow, I’m sure in such a huge book as this one, covering so much material, Diamond made some missteps but I think his overall thesis is ballpark correct (and important!) and the general historical analysis strikes me as solid.

Given the interwoven nature of the global economy, intricate complexity of our systems, and rates of environmental destruction and pressures we are applying on environment Diamond readily admits we are facing huge, potentially civilization changing downshifts. Grave risks, weakness or breakdown in one part of the global system can reverberate throughout. So it was kind of jarring to me when he states at the end of his book that he is “cautiously optimistic” we can turn things around in regards to preventing environmental breakdowns and catastrophes for global civilization. I was a bit surprised by that tbh, maybe I was struck by the nonchalance of his optimism especially given his devastating analysis of what we are facing. I’m certainly not as sanguine. I always kind of hope that hey, maybe I’ve just drank too much of that Jonestown Climate Change/Environmental Apocalypse kool-aid ha. Would love to be magnificently wrong on everything but I’d rather try and see things as they are than try and lie to myself with beautiful illusions. I’m just a lay person, but my sense given what I’ve read is that we are in big trouble and courting a slowly unfurling disaster.

There were some great sections. I liked the one where he spells out something like a list of 10 reasons/statements people use to minimize environmental problems. This includes people who have magical belief in deux ex machina future tech that will come save us from problems we have or are causing. I’m glad he hates this because I hate it, it really drives me bonkers, the use of this concept is a great way to sidestep any responsibility or accountability for present actions and greenlights continuation of pernicious status quo. I do think tech and innovation can be tools to help us, but they all have various externalities and can cause new problems of their own, plus in regards to environment, since the systems are all so interconnected you destroy or damage one aspect it can lead to a grand cascade. At that point tech can maybe help minimize issues but it is hard (impossible?) if damage is too great the unleashed cascade will shudder throughout the systems. Good luck putting the genie back in the bottle, some changes are irrevocable (6th extinction underway is a good example, even the destruction of what can seem an innocuous tiny microorgamisn can completely change the ecosystem with implications for species in that system). Diamond also points out another argument people use to justify environmental destruction: well the environment is a luxury and we need to do everything we can for our economy (which includes destroying the environment). The economy is driven by the environment! you break the environment (or elements of it) and you will likely hamstring your economy in various ways. Happens again and again. And it's not simple, I understand the tension in this dynamic because if you are hungry today you need to do whatever it is you can to put food on the table and sometimes that includes destroying the environment which will have long term implications, but if you are hungry and desperate you don't have as much luxury to think about or emphasize the long term.

I’m not sure how I feel about his soft defense of corporations and his emphasis on the consumer. I think it annoys me, lol. He doesn’t give corporations a free pass, but he tries to explain why they do what they do. He tries to play a balanced view on all this, hey corporations have to operate under their prime directive (PROFITS! at all costs) or they will be sued by shareholders if they don’t (regardless of damage done to environment, community, etc). He also very much emphasizes consumer ability to exert pressure on companies to shift to more environmentally friendly habits. I believe this is a good tactic but can also be limited (not to mention not all consumers have luxury to shift to more environmentally friendly consumption nor the luxury of time to research and learn what those options might be). Ultimately I am of the belief one has to reform the systems we are operating in, this includes reforming how corporations operate (instead of monolithic submission to shareholders I believe in a multi-foundational mission for corporations where community, workers, management, shareholders are all taken into consideration. This is more holistic in my view than the blind submission to shareholders who hold companies and company policy/strategy hostage).

The concept of sustainable living might be a high priority for me but it is very hard given the way the system is set up, I still generate a massive amount of trash and use tons of energy… this is not to sidestep accountability, because I should be held accountable and I can do better and many things I can do... but I think even the best intentioned have a hard time because our society is set up in such a way that we are nudged (pushed!) towards more environmentally destructive options (these are cheaper, more convenient options usually, sometimes the only option). Diamond doesn’t really get into this concept of reforming corporations or the infrastructure and systems within our society.

I think this is a good book but if you are looking for a concise systems analysis text on the environmental issues we are facing and the earth’s capacity to sustain it I highly recommend Donna Meadows Limits to Growth (30 year edition): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7...

This was my favorite quote from the book and I think it is very good and can be applied to how blinded our thinking can be, including my own:

“[T]he values to which people cling most stubbornly under inappropriate conditions are those values that were previously the source of their greatest triumphs.”

Oh, and here is another good quote. Diamond touches on this concept and it is pertinent to many problems: elites being insulated from the problems they create. It is often elites/corporations who extract wealth then hightail it out of there with no consequences for their actions/environmental destruction (letting other people deal with the destruction or messes they create, while elites pocket all the $$$). This quote is more about the insulation of elites on the consumption side of things, but the extraction (production) side is important imo and I was glad to see Diamond explore that problem:

“In much of the rest of the world, rich people live in gated communities and drink bottled water. That's increasingly the case in Los Angeles where I come from. So that wealthy people in much of the world are insulated from the consequences of their actions."

holy F am i glad that this is over. i hate to criticise because when was the last time that i wrote a 500+ page interdisciplinary tome as a follow-up to a Pulitzer Prize-winner? nevertheless, this book has serious flaws.

i did learn a lot - not only historical facts and profiles of ancient and existing societies, but also about how environmental problems actually wreak their damage, and how the mining, oil, coal and other industries operate.

my main complaint about this book is that it very quickly becomes entirely unreadable. it's one the most painful, repetitive, loquacious, disorganised trudges that i've had to suffer through since attempting Fraser's 'The Golden Bough'. this book is in need of further editing. it could have been refined to half its current length without diminishing its strengths. in fact, 'Collapse' reads like two books - one on the role of the environment on societal collapses and another on how environmental damage is affecting the world at present.

another gripe, more personal, is that he assumes too much of his audience, i.e. that we're all a bunch of speciesist capitalists.

also, despite a veneer of open-minded, cosmopolitan worldliness, i could not help feeling that the book contains culturally insensitive content, e.g. repeatedly referring to Native Americans as Indians and to developing countries as the Third World, and that Diamond is somehow reluctantly restraining himself when he writes about immigration and 'Third World' countries adopting 'First World' standards.

my advice: read the intro, maybe the first chapter, then the final chapter, and you're good.

i'm looking forward to liberating more space on the shelf. when i first began reading 'Collapse', i was planning on reading 'Guns, Germs and Steel' next, but forget that. i need some sci-fi vampires to recover.

Turns out that Diamond was simply passing along received wisdom about Easter Island that has been refuted by subsequent researchers and scholars.

============

His story about the conquest of the Incas by the Spanish has also been pre-empted by fresh scholarship. This documentary explains.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JZKU...

In case his name rings a bell, but you can't place it, he is best known for "Guns, Germs, and Steel", a weighty and well-crafted tome on the topic of how and why Europe conquered the rest of the world, instead of some other continent. The answer is (partially) in the title.

His latest effort is on a similarly cheery topic, the ways in which societies do (or do not) exhaust their environments to the point of extinction. He ranges across many centuries and continents, including a look at 20th-21st century Wyoming, but concentrates on a couple clusters:

1) pacific islands, from Easter Island to Pitcairn Island to Henderson Island
2) Norse societies, from Iceland to Greenland to Vinland

The advantage here is that he can look at societies with a similar origin (Pacific Islander or Scandinavian), and compare how they did in different environments. Other cases include the Maya, the Anasazi, and modern Australia and China.

The most haunting case histories are, of course, the failed ones. What did the Easter Islanders think as they were cutting down the last trees on their island, condemning themselves to poverty and imprisonment on an island they could no longer make the ships to leave? What did the Greenland Norse tell each other as they watch the non-Christian newcomers (Inuit) prosper, while they wasted their most valuable resources on churches dedicated to their God, and nonetheless declined into extinction? What did the Anasazi or the Maya think was going wrong, as their cities were abandoned near the end?

Which all brings up, of course, the obvious parallels to 21st century Earth. It has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, but here Diamond manages to avoid the near-ubiquitous vice of the environmentalist writer: the Hellfire and Damnation Sermon.

The true H&DS lays out the manifold sins of the listeners mercilessly, spells out for them just how bad the fires of the netherworld will be, and demands that they beg God for forgiveness, all the while assuring them that they don't deserve it.

Sadly, it is the most common pattern for the modern environmentalist activist, who (in style, if not in beliefs) resembles 18th century Puritans more than a little. Which calls to mind why the Puritans eventually decline after every revival: they're depressing. Regardless of whether the populace believes they are right or not, after the novelty wears off, it's just gloomy and morbid. Abandon technology, or Mother Earth will bring on the ecopocalypse. But it's probably coming anyway, whatever you do.

To counter this, Diamond adds a number of success stories, where societies came to the bring of ecological catastrophe, and managed to learn, and pull back. Interestingly, they don't all follow the same path to get there. Tokugawa Japan is one such case, Norse Iceland is another, and the Dominican Republic and New Guineau are others.

This sort of thing, I've noticed, drives ecopuritans nuts. They apparently can't stand to hear anything positive said about the state of any ecosystem anywhere, for fear that people will think they can relax and go back to unlimited despoilation. The end result is the opposite of their intention, by the way: mainstream politics eventually learns to ignore the protests of any group (feminist, christian conservative, whatever) which is never happy.

By providing both examples of how things can go wrong (and in the past, actually have), Diamond also courts antagonism from those who believe in the Noble Savage, i.e. the idea that only modern Western-style capitalism wrecks ecosystems, and the people who got the worst of it in "Guns, Germs, and Steel" would never do such a thing. Which is bollocks, because stupidity exists equally in all races.

The sum total, however, is a well-reasoned examination of how societies come to exceed the limits of their environment's resources. One intriguing point is how the collapse often comes shortly after the peak prosperity, in a phenomenon similar to a bubble economy. Drawing on your ecosystem's resources as fast as possible does boost your productivity, including the production of more tools for exploiting additional resources. Right up until the point where something important (water, trees, topsoil, arable land) runs out, and then the crash is compounded by the fighting among too many for too little. Rwanda is a particularly brutal recent example of the multiplicative effects of resource scarcity and civil war.

If you like hard-nosed, fact-driven analysis, with a broad historical (and even pre-historical) sweep, this is a good one. Highly recommended. Not something to read while falling asleep, though. All those tales of ruined civilizations (toppled Easter Island statues, Mayan cities fallen back into jungle, crumbling Norse churches in Greenland) do not make for good dreams.

Tüfek, Mikrop ve Çelik kadar olmasa da çok beğendiğim bir Jared Diamond kitabı daha oldu. Bu kitapta Diamond, toplulukların çöküşe nasıl gittiklerini, bunu önceden kestirebilecekleri ipuçlarının olup olmadığını ve günümüz medeniyeti olarak bundan çıkarabileceğimiz dersleri tartışıyor.

Kitap diğer Diamond kitapları kadar akıcı değil. Girişteki Montana bölümü fazla uzun tutulmuş. Amerika Birleşik Devletleri'nde yaşamayan insanlar için belki de sıkıcı bir bölüm olabilir. İlerleyen bölümlerden en çok dikkat çekenler Paskalya halkı ve Grönland İskandinavlarına neler olduğunu anlattığı bölümler.

Kitapta editörlük, Türkçe çok kötü. Örn. 414. sayfada "çukulata" diye çevrilmiş çikolata. Sayısız yerde dahi anlamına gelen "de/da" ekleri ayrı yazılmamış. Bir çok harf hatası var.

Kitabın Chevron firması gibi bazı petrol şirketlerine övgüler yağdıran bölümleri insanı biraz şüpheye sevk ediyor. Diamond çeşitli firmaların talebi doğrultusunda çevre raporları yazmış. Burada edindiği tecrübeleri de paylaşıyor. Burada firmaların iyi uygulamalarını başka firmalara örnek göstermek kaygısı taşıdığı kesin. Ancak ister istemez ulusaşırı şirketlerin az gelişmiş ülkelerin yer altı kaynaklarına yönelik duydukları ilginin arka planını göz ardı etmiş veya veri olarak almış. Zaten Diamond'un hiçbir zaman kapitalizm eleştirisi yaptığını görmedim. O nedenle bu noktada beklenmedik bir şey yok. Kendisi de kitabın girişinde zaten bu konuda eleştiriler aldığını itiraf etmiş.

Neticede güzel dersler çıkarılabilecek, önemli bir okumaydı. Çevre tahribatının sürmesi bu hızla devam ederse bizlerin de sonunun Paskalya halkı gibi olacağını yeterince sarih anlatmış.

M. Baran
27.03.2022
Ankara

A book about environment, and how humans are exhausting the planets resources.

The author describes the following topics which were the main reason or contributed to the fall of societies in the past:

Deforestation and habitat destructions
Soil problems (erosion, salinization, and soil fertility losses)
Water management problems
Overhunting
Overfishing
Effects of introduced species on native species
Overpopulation
Increased per-capita impact of people

In addition to this, the following topics did not exist in the past but may contribute to the decline of humans in the near future.

Anthropogenic climate change
Buildup of toxins in the environment
Energy shortages
Full human use of the Earth’s photosynthetic capacity

The author presents various examples from past societies that declined because they over consumed a crucial element of their environment and did not adapt to it's shortage:

The Greenland Norse (climate change, environmental damage, loss of trading partners)
Easter Island (a society that collapsed entirely due to environmental damage)
The Polynesians of Pitcairn Island (environmental damage and loss of trading partners)
The Anasazi of southwestern North America (environmental damage and climate change)
The Maya of Central America (environmental damage, climate change, and hostile neighbors)

Jared Diamond gives some examples from the past where societies did manage to adapt to the changes:

The tiny Pacific island of Tikopia
The agricultural success of central New Guinea
The forest management in Japan of the Tokugawa-era, and in Germany.

In the second part of the book various modern societies are discussed and the author shows that they are on the sure path to exploiting or destroying crucial resources of the environment and apparently not much is done about it:

The collapse into genocide of Rwanda, caused in part by overpopulation
The failure of Haiti compared with the relative success of its neighbor on Hispaniola, the Dominican Republic
The problems facing a developing nation, China
The problems facing a First World nation, Australia

The book concludes with various ways the modern world can solve the environmental issues and what has already been done (not much)

Considering the action's (and non actions) by the current American president, Donald Trump, I found great importance in this book. The success stories of environment preserving in this book, started with recognition of the problem and willingness to make short term sacrifices in order to solve it. The recent actions of the American government (Pulling out of the Paris climate pact and increasing coal minning and other environment unfriendly activities) give this book increased importance.

Well, well, well...this book is a masterpiece. It's taken me a long time (at least to my standards) to finish the last chapters, but even though Diamond doesn't get to the point as quickly as he could, the read is definetely worht it.
By using collapsed societies' examples, the author explains the factors that determine the success or failure of a society, combining historical knowledge with climatic, biological, antropological and geographical ones.
In risk to oversimplify the book, I'd say that Diamond's whole point is something close to "don't be fucking idiots and take care of the planet".

There are a lot of interesting historical factoid tidbits and ideas in this book, but I’d rather read the version that actually names and critiques capitalism and colonialism as source causes to collapse (how he managed to avoid using these concepts throughout says so much!), and that provides a climate justice framework as integral to our needed system change solutions. This book was definitely written in the early 2000’s but you would think Diamond had no idea that decolonization, intersectional feminism and critical theory was alive and well 20 years ago, with the language and frameworks he uses. I’m not going to take you serious if you use 3rd world/1st world binary throughout, but never even mention imperialism/colonialism when explaining world history and geography. Not visionary. Repeatedly falls into Corporate/empire apologist doublespeak. Boring at times. Not particularly well written and needs a serious edit from front to back. Shave off 150 pages easily. 2 stars overall.