A book recommended to anyone who enjoyed The Overstory and who wants a non-fictional account of many of the ideas there.

Very detailed book by author of “Guns, Germs and Steel” – enjoyable and provocative, although very detailed and easiest to read simply cover-to-cover while trying to absorb the bigger picture.

Diamond’s big theme is to look at historical environmental induced societal collapse and to identify five main reasons that cause collapse (or its opposite). These are: damage that people inadvertently inflict on their environment; the impact of climate change (particularly sudden climate change as society may be adapted to very different conditions); hostile neighbours; decreased support by friendly neighbours (e.g. the collapse of trading partners); and most importantly societies own response to the environmental problems.

In a separate chapter on the latter he identifies reasons for inadequate responses as: failure to anticipate a problem (either because it had not happened before – or particularly in pre-literate societies because they have forgotten past occurrences, or because of misapplying analogies e.g. something that worked in a different situation); failure to perceive a problem has arisen (e.g. hidden problems or creeping issues – slow trends masked by fluctuations); irrational reactions even though a problem has been identified (groupthink, tragedy of the commons, clashes if interest, clinging to values which are no longer helpful).

Opening chapter is Diamond’s comments on the environmental problems in his own area of Montana – although I could understand that the point of this chapter was to place historical issues in modern terms I actually found little identification with this chapter. I also found the sections at the end on the role of business a little self serving (Diamond has been criticised by other environmentalists for attempting to engage with e.g. oil and mining companies).

He then considers a number of historical civilisation collapses: Easter Island (deforestation); Pitcairn and Henderson Islands (collapse of trading partners); the Native American Anasazi (environmental damage/population growth combined with climate change); Mayas (as for Anasazi although with hostile neighbours); Norse Greenland (a very detailed treatment where the failure of the Norse compared with the survival of the Inuit is due to all of the five factors).

He then considers some historical societies that succeeded (Iceland, New Guinea highlands, old Japan).

In each of these he draws parallels with the modern world and brings this together in a chapter at the end.

In the modern era he discusses the Rwandan tragedy, contrasts Dominican Republic and Haiti and then considers the developing situation in Australia and Japan.

Diamond analyzes why societies past and present succeed or fail based on an application of five criteria; people’s impact on their environment, climate change, hostile neighbors, support of near-by cultures, and finally societies response to its problems. Diamond identifies 12 environmental problems facing past and present societies and importantly explains 11 myths that currently exist related to environmental concerns. The book is quite detailed in its analysis of cultural and environmental geography. The author says we just need the political will to apply solutions already available and to look at problems with long-term planning approach not quick fixes with popular political rhetoric.

Terrifying how often the pattern of exploitation of nature and decline of cultures has repeated itself.

The fitting additional book to Diamonds work "Guns Germs and Steel" offers past and present scenarios of various environmental conditions and the mastery or miserable failure of the peoples trying to master the challenge. Especially in isolated societies, where the socio-cultural aspect is much more emphasized by the absence of invaders or other disturbing factors, the processes leading to the formation of today's ruins or prosperous cities are described.

As a classic positive example, Iceland, which counters the desolation of the climate zone and infertility of barren landscapes with strong community feeling and intelligent farming, can be named. Other isolated island states, such as Easter Island and other ghost islands, have been caught in the throes of social degeneration and driven to self-destruction by meaningless, prestigious or religiously driven construction projects, civil wars, exploitation of natural resources to the collapse of the ecosystem, or a bit of this and that mixed up together.

Often there was an old tradition of proven survival strategies on the failed island states, but their practice was mostly forgotten or ignored in the course of the delusion, resulting in the collapse of the social system and the extinction of the tribe.

How the authors' theses could be applied to the history of the development of more significant, continental nations would be highly enjoyable. This would probably be far too far-reaching and hypothetical because of the added complexity, which is why Diamond didn´t mention it, but it would make a great, new research area. The factors that are taken into account, such as climate change, hostile neighbors, environmental destruction, breaking an alliance or loss of support from friendly neighbors and, as a decisive factor, the reaction of the population and ruling caste, already present a high potential for complexity. Therefore, it would no longer be concluded with scientific seriousness by introducing additional factors such as in the case of the Roman Empire or other fallen empires.

It is noteworthy that the scheme of slow degeneration through creeping degradation of cultural as well as naturally given resources can strike both relatively primitive, almost Stone Age societies as unexpectedly as highly developed and militarily nearly unbeatable empires. Despite the admonishers of the respective time, fanaticism and megalomania became the leading motive and in hindsight apparent nonsensical and self-destructive mechanisms leaked into politics until it was accepted as usual and criticism was negated until the downfall.

At this point, it makes sense to see the accordances with the present and to illustrate the classic repetition of the history using various examples. Thus, even after dozens of vivid and illustrative learning examples from the history of what one should avoid as a state, the same, actually, precisely recognizable mistakes are committed today.
Whether it is negligent, irreversible environmental destruction, political destabilization until to the collapse of state and social order, including genocide and targeted destruction of infrastructure until relapse into archaic forms of government and theocracy, there is a wide range of patterns.

Their use seems to be so desirable to humanity that repeated attempts can no longer be construed as just perseverance. But instead, as ignorance and incompetence of elites, to whom a brief reading of any historical atlas could give numerous examples of the futility of their present action. The big and anxious question after completing the book remains whether we, as a society, may have not jumped on the wrong train for far too long. One that not only directs individual islands, regions or states, as described in the book, but the entire planet and the civilization living on it, on a path into the abyss.

A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this completely overrated real-life outside books:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_D...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaps...

This book was groundbreaking - I actually started this book in order to explore how societies have flourished and vanished over the course of the years. I expected to receive an overview of all factors, politically, economically and environmentally. However, Jared Diamond only concentrates to the environmentally factors - not only limiting himself to the disasters (Eastern Island, Maya's and the Anasazi) but also the success stories (the Tokugawa Japanese).

However, Jared not only limits himself to the history, but also drawes conclusions for our present. He shows us that we are facing the same disaster that happened upon our ancestors and in a few decades our modern world will face the same issues that were faced by the above called cultures.

Jared strongly focuses upon the fact that we need to take the matters in our own hands in order to be able to transfer our world to our children.

This was an outcome that I did not expect in this book, but has changed my attitude towards my own environment. It's not too late (although it's 5 minutes before midnight) but we need to act NOW.

We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children

I listened to the abridged audio version of this book. Some of the discs were damaged, and I have no idea what I missed, so I won't rate the book. I wanted to listen to the full-length audio version, but I can't stand that reader's style. You'd have to put a firecracker up his nose to get him to put any inflection in his voice. (Don't forget to light the firecracker. An unlit one would just make him sound even more nasally challenged.)

A lot of what was in this book I already knew from my degree program at university. So the things that were new to me were of course the most interesting. I never would have guessed that Easter Island was once covered with giant coconut palms that are now extinct. The section about Greenland was also new to me, and so telling about prejudices. The Nordic people did not survive there because they were too superior to learn from the Inuit, who continue to thrive.

Before delving into the book, I wondered about the use of the word "choose" in the title. Now I understand how that is true. Societies have often "chosen" to succeed or fail depending on whether they use a top-down or bottom-up form of government and resource management.

The Pulitzer-prize winning "Guns, Germs and Steel" by this dude forever changed the way I look at history. And believe me, I am a history buff of sorts so this means a lot. Unfortunately, "Collapse" fails to measure up to that classic.

The real problem with Collapse isn't the research that goes into the thesis, or even the soundness of the thesis itself (though there are some qualms I have about how politically unstable Mongolia is or basing his analysis of cod fisheries on a single popular accunt). The central contention, that population explosion, interdependency, unsustainable harvest, adverse cultural values, and about 8 other factors contributed to a society's collapse, is innocuous enough, though admittedly somewhat vague. Rather, the problem is that Diamond is so intent upon clearly and explicitly detailing every freaking argument to paint a convincing picture of the ancient/medieval societies or the current polluting industries that he often loses sight of his larger arguments. For instance, his discussion of Viking Greenland v. Iceland is insightful but whether it warrants nearly 100 pages in a 500 page book I doubt. The same could be said of his discussion of modern Australia; China, in contrast, gets really short shrift. He goes at pain to explicate the archaeological evidence by which we understand the Anasazi collapse, but here too he gets a little repetitive and locquacious. For instance, the logic behind dendrochronolgy and salinization were explained more than once to elucidate yet another nuance. Indeed, here Diamond the scientist persistently gets in the way of Diamond the popular writer. Were it not for his stellar writing skills this would have been even more of a chore to read.

Apart from the lack of effective editing, Collapse suffers from Diamond's penchant to almost bend over backward to point out that he is not engaged in a crude form of "Environmental determinism" whereby the significance of cultural and political events are misleadingly downplayed. He certainly didn't do this in Guns Germs and Steel but many people, including the NY Times, accuse him of it. Nevertheless Diamond was sufficiently sensitive to this interpretation (as well as eager to show that we can prevent environmental catastrophe) that he repeats this ad nauseum and, IMHO, belabors this point to being beyond repetitive.

The cumulative effect of all these shortcomings is that the book ends up presenting really rather very little that is new, argues persistently against straw man hypotheses, and is informative but almost in a trivial sense. At 520 odd dense pages this is a lot to ask of a reader, and it is a pity that this simply does not measure up to Diamond's earlier works.

Extremely repetitive, inadequately researched, highly speculative, and overly assertive. Jared Diamond clearly knows a lot about some things, but he seems to think he knows a lot about everything. And he gets a lot wrong, at least on the things I know something about (Easter Island, for example, where his Collapse hypothesis is generally regarded by people who actually study the island's history and prehistory as wildly off-base and unsupported by evidence).

This book was clearly written by someone who had a theory (Collapse) and went looking for evidence to justify it. Fine, I suppose, but that's the opposite of a scientific approach (examine evidence and search for a theory to explain it).

Stylistically, his tendency to repeat every point two or three or four times might be helpful in the classroom, but it's irritating to read.

Overall, my strong recommendation is not to bother with this book. Seriously, it's almost impossible to distinguish between the assertions that are supported by evidence and accepted by experts and those that are just Jared Diamond's speculation. Unfortunately, this hit the bestseller list and lots of his speculation became accepted by intelligent people who don't happen to be experts.

Yeah, we’re kinda fucked.

Απιστευτα διαφωτιστικό. Το βιβλίο ειναι κτήνος και η έρευνα που έχει γίνει εις βάθος.

4.5 stars

A study on the collapse, near collapse or resurrection of eighteen different 'civilizations' that were in danger either due to environmental destruction and or lack of raw materials.

My favorite chapters and the most insightful were:

1. Rwanda's genocide - the war was in large part due to overpopulation

2. Pitcairn Islands - deforestation leads to inability to build seagoing boats to connect to other islands.

3. The Dominican Republic and Haiti - perhaps my favorite chapter explaining why the Dominican Republic per capita income is 5x that of Haiti. It involves a dictator who wanted to save the Dominican forests.

4. The Maya Collapses - overpopulation and rainfall differences between Mayan regions had a lot to do with who prospered and who collapsed.

5. Mining Australia - fascinating science behind why farming is so unsuccessful in Australia and it is not just lack of water.

I think Diamond is one of the most interesting non-fiction writers of the past thirty years.

In Collapse, Jared Diamond draws our attention to the following problems, which have "plagued" humanity throughout history.

1. Deforestation and loss of habitat
2. Overhunting
3. Overfishing
4. Soil degradation
5. Water management problems
6. Population growth
7. Increased per capita impact of people
8. Impact of non-native species

And now we face four more:

9. Human-caused climate change
10. The build up toxic waste
11. We're approaching the limits of the Earth's photosynthetic capacity
12. Energy shortages

There are societies that failed to resolve these problems and Diamond's thesis is they collapsed because of it.

Perhaps the most engaging example of this pattern is Diamond's discussion of the isolated Polynesians on Easter Island. They used all of their trees, which led to soil erosion, which led to food shortages, which led to cannibalism. We now live in a "globalized world," but perhaps we should say that we're finally realizing that we live on an island. It seems that we have yet to realize the demands we make on our island. **Update 2020: Much of what Diamond writes about Easter Island appears to have been debunked. See Bregman's Humankind for a summary that's written for the general public.**

I wish that I could just knock off one or two of those problems from Diamond's list, but I can't. Many of them are linked, so if we fail to respond to one, we fail to respond to several. At other times, we lean too hard on solving one problem and end up causing new problems. For example, many forests (Diamond refers to Montana, but I've read about this dynamic elsewhere) have been developed as cottage areas, so we do not allow fires or any logging. The buildup of old forest and underbrush makes for a tinderbox, which means that when fires do happen, they are massive. And putting them out is not free, either.

How do you gather political will to deal with a problem like this? We could try to log sustainably and selectively. Jaded by greenwashing, environmentalists are unlikely to trust any company. Cottage owners are certainly not going to recommend logging or allowing fires of any sort to threaten their investments. No politician can gather support, so every stakeholder is stuck.

Diamond further illustrates the role of ecological problems in societal collapses by comparing past societies that collapsed (as opposed to declined) throughout history. In each case, he methodically outlines how these societies destroyed themselves by failing to resolve ecological problems. It's pretty convincing, though I've become aware that archeologists dispute many of his claims.

I think there is a common concern for the environment. I'm not even 30, so perhaps I can't speak with a great deal of authority on the subject, but it feels to me that North America is obsessed with post-apocalyptic settings right now in 2011. If there is a "spirit" of a society that is translated in its literature, then I think it's safe to say that the bearded guy holding a "the end is nigh" sign is finally getting the mainstream audience he dreamed of.

It seems to me the real problem is that it is very difficult to minimize our impact on the environment. We can call upon America to lead the way, but they can't even manage their debt. In fact, the societies that Diamond relies on to illustrate that it is possible to limit deforestation, tend to be autocratic (though so were the societies that Diamond relies on to illustrate failure). Now, some NGOs have set up certification procedures that identify wood that was harvested sustainably, but other corporate commissions have set up their own certification bodies to confuse consumers.

Nevertheless, Diamond outlines reasons to be cautiously optimistic before concluding. Unfortunately, this may have been the least convincing part of Collapse.

So I'll close with the cynical words of Danny Archer from Blood Diamond.

"When was the last time the world wasn't ending?"

Usually, I find these words very soothing. Now I feel like the world always has been ending. It's just that until recently, humanity could only end one specific part of it at any given time. Now we're a global society.

0 stars if I could!! hated it!! great book if you're looking for pseudoscience that just proves one author's point!