-Interesante pero insistente.-

Género. Ensayo.

Lo que nos cuenta. Aproximación a los fenómenos que marcan que unas sociedades hayan florecido y otras hayan terminado desapareciendo a lo largo de neustra historia, desde ópticas pertenecientes a distintas disciplinas y apoyado en situaciones bastante documentadas en su mayoría, además de abordar cuestiones de actualidad al respecto.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

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Another excellent book by Jared Diamond that closely examines the relationship between the environment and the success and/or failure of various civilizations both ancient and modern. This territory was already brilliantly explored in his earlier Guns, Germs & Steel, so in some ways it feels like an addendum to the previous book, simply expanding on the number of case studies in more detail, so it's not as fresh as the previous book. Still, the insights are still there, and the modern-day discussions of Montana and Australia are also illuminating. However, the chapter on China is very underdeveloped, whereas too much time is devoted to Greenland. Overall, highly recommended if a tad overlong.

So I was in Belize for the holiday and became fascinated with all the Mayan ruins I visited. I had been to Copan in Honduras years ago, but was reminded of the great glory of this civilization, and the controversial collapse that happened to disperse people from these great structures around 900 AD.

I love Guns Germs and Steel more than anything, it changed how I look at history and people and society, so I dug into this one, particularly the Mayan part, with great excitement. And it doesn't disappoint.

A lot of this book is clearly set up to support the author's argument, that it is the roll of the dice of how delicate the ecology is where societies set up shop, and how the societies treated them that causes collapse. Basically an extension of Guns Germs and Steel. This puts a stark face on how we should and need to consider dealing with the environment cards we're dealt though.

Nothing is more tragic than the Easter Island chapter, it is breathtaking the research and evidence that proves why they disappeared, and tragic if you think about it in the context of our earth, from which we really cannot escape, same as the Easter Islanders.

If you are an environmentalist or not, there are thought provoking ideas and statistics here that put a concrete face to a cause that has become an emotional and numbing topic. You can tell people what they SHOULD care about, what they SHOULD do, but until you convince yourself it's important, you cannot change yourself or who is around you. This book put that part of me that feels strongly about preserving/managing the environment, and made it logical and scientific again.

This is NOT a book trying to convince you to care about the environment, it's a survey of lost civilizations and how they collapsed. The awareness for me was a byproduct, and fascinating in its own right.

I read this book over six weeks from February through March 2006. It took a lot of effort but was excellent. It is filled with excellent observations on different societies and why they failed or excelled. Much of his observations were new to me but were well documented and reasonable. In addition, to information on various societies was an introduction to various field methods of study that were amazing. So, he shows what is the current research into archeology (and all its arcane specialties) but how they provide information on former civilizations.

Easter Island – Why did the society collapse and why did they build those statues. Easter Island is somewhat unique. It is a temperate zone island as opposed to tropical for most Polynesian settle areas. Second, it was much farther away from other Polynesian islands. Diamond’s hypothesis on Easter Island’s demise is deforestation. He sites two interesting studies – pollen studies from soil samples and second checking charcoal ashes from garbage heaps. They both show a decline in large palm trees. Even more interesting is the loss of a species of Giant Palm and then the loses of other types of palm. The tree lose also meant they lost transportation as the Giant Palms were used to make the ocean going canoes. Also, the moia sites show increased activity as the resources were being depleted and then signs of warfare and the societies collapse.
Easter island more than other locations was more fragile because it was dry, temperate, and isolated.

Anasazi - This area of the southwest has been repeated settled and then collapse. Basically, this is very marginal area to live (it’s a desert). It gets wetter for 50-100 years and new people settle the area, deplete the resources (soil), population increases, and then it gets dry and everyone kills each other or moves on. Diamond’s point is that it is multiple factors that cause their collapse and not to focus on the last war or migration but the underlying environmental issues causing the crises. Chaco Canyon was probably the most advanced site. Again, the main cause of collapse was deforestation. Here, the biologist studied the crystallized urine pellets of packrats to see how the fauna had changed – Amazing. Packrats have been living in the area for 40K years. They found that this area used to be moderately forested with Pinyon pines. An example of impending collapse – remains of headless mice in the human preserved dry feces suggesting people were catching and eating mice whole. Also, the latest construction (based on tree ring studies) is defensive walls and gates. Finally, limited portable objects (pottery, knives) are left at the site, so the majority probably migrated.


Maya – Here is again an area where few modern people live, yet there were hundreds of thousands of people in an advanced Society at one point. Mayan were limited by several factors (from Guns, Germs, and Steel) – poor crops only corn, not wheat or barley and few domestic animals. The suspect cause of collapse here is soil fertility. This area has poor soils and Mayan’s had limited crop options. They first farmed the valleys and then the hills. Once they removed the trees from the hills, the hill sides eroded, leaving even less farmable land. Evidence is based on the decline of nutrition based on reviewing the skeletons by age. Second, by pollen studies that show loss of native trees and replacement by crop pollen. After a city collapse, increases in native tree pollen. The other factor was long term climate change in rain fall. From 5500 bc to 500B.C is relatively wet. Then it cycles every 100 or so years. This was determined by studying the isotopes of Oxygen in the lake bed sediment. In dry years, there is more evaporation and a different ratio of Isotopes (lighter isotopes evaporate faster).

Vikings – There were several Viking colonies of variable success. The most remote and quickest to fail was vineland (Canada). Basically, the native Americans were able to push the Vikings out. Since this was the farthest away, there was no way to send a large force of technologically superior Vikings (Vikings had iron). Greenland was the next farthest and Diamond spends two chapters on them. They lasted for about 400 years before Collapsing. He argues for multiple factors – first, loss of contact with the homeland and trade. In the late 1400s, Norway had a new king and internal issues that reduced shipping from 4 ships a year to one every decade. The other cause of reduced shipping was the crusades open up Africa Ivory trade which decrease need for Greenlands major export crop of Walrus Ivory. Archeologists found less and less iron in construction and iron tools. Knives are sharpened to the nub. Further, Greenland has no large trees for shipbuilding. All ships had to come from Europe. Second, climate change made it colder. This is marginal area for farming, so decreased growing season is critical. Third, was not adapting from home country ideals. They kept cows as a status item which required tremendous pasture and hay production. Goats would be better in this marginal land. Fourth, soil loss. Cattle and hay production reduce the fertility of the soil. The final stroke was the expansion of the Inuit into Greenland. Inuit were able to harvest whales and other fauna not used by the Norse. Inuit were probably able to overrun the few remain survivors as the survivors had no advantages in Iron.
In Iceland, the norse survived. They were closer to Norway to be able to be resupplied. However, it is not sustainable. Iceland has had complete forest removal and is not bare as the moon in many areas.

If we eat more we’ll get
A handful of nothing
- Daniel Gildenlöw -

Collasso è stato probabilmente il primo libro ad avermi realmente terrorizzato. Avevo scritto un presuntuosissimo e pesantissimo commento. Questa è la versione (leggermente) potata.

Gildenlöw è svedese, come l'adolescente treccioluta che per qualche tempo ha attirato l'attenzione anche del distratto popolo italiano sul piccolo problema del cambiamento climatico. Poi c'è stato il toto-allenatori di Inter e Juventus. Per una Greta che passa, un Diamond è per sempre. E non di soli problemi ambientali/climatici muoiono le civiltà.

- Modalità spiegone spocchioso ON -
Non pago di averci spiegato le ragioni per cui, nel corso della storia, alcune società umane siano riuscite a prosperare più di altre (Armi, acciaio e malattie), Jared Diamond è tornato sulla questione, affrontando il tema dall'angolazione opposta, e ha deciso di illustrarci i motivi per cui alcune popolazioni non siano riuscite ad affrontare con successo le sfide che si sono presentate loro. Sono i declini e i crolli delle società umane, del passato e del presente, a rappresentare l’argomento di questa nuova fatica dell’autore, che non solo ne vuole comprendere le cause e le dinamiche, ma anche cercare di trarne utili insegnamenti per il futuro.

Diamond affronta lo studio delle vicende umane con un approccio molto differente da quello adottato dalla maggior parte degli “storici di mestiere”: fa infatti ricorso ad una metodologia che discende direttamente dalla sua formazione di biologo, e che mira ad una conoscenza “scientifica” dei processi di lungo e di lunghissimo periodo che hanno caratterizzato il corso della storia umana. Se in Armi, acciaio e malattie la ricostruzione, ad esempio, della conquista dell'impero Inca da parte degli spagnoli era diretta alla comprensione dei fattori che, negli ultimi 13.000 anni, avevano permesso alle popolazioni dell'Eurasia di sottomettere buona parte del mondo (fattori legati alle differenze ambientali dei diversi continenti), in Collasso lo studio dei tracolli delle società del passato e del presente è finalizzato alla formulazione di una sorta di “teoria generale del crollo”, sempre valida e applicabile nonostante le differenze che contraddistinguono i singoli casi presi in esame. Si potrebbe sostenere che Diamond abbia una visione “dualistica” (e semplicistica) della storia, in cui alcune società hanno avuto successo ed altre sono state sconfitte: un mondo popolato di “vincitori e vinti”, in cui non c'è spazio per distinzioni ulteriori. Ma bisogna ricordare che l'autore non intende dare giudizi di valore, e che solo l'interesse per i processi di lungo periodo permette di tracciare una netta linea di confine tra vincitori e vinti: i primi sono sopravvissuti, i secondi no.

Il metodo adottato da Diamond, in entrambe le opere citate, si rivela anche per altri aspetti peculiare: in primo luogo, per il ricorso alle più varie fonti di conoscenza (dall'archeologia alla botanica, dalla psicologia alla linguistica), comprese le esperienze personali dell'autore (come biologo e ornitologo, ma anche come rappresentante di una delle principali organizzazioni ambientaliste, il WWF, e come visitatore curioso dei quattro angoli del mondo); in secondo luogo, per l'adozione del “metodo comparativo” (o “esperimento naturale”), ovvero il confronto sistematico fra società del passato e del presente, differenti tra loro per alcune caratteristiche fondamentali e per il diverso grado di stabilità, necessario per scoprire “scientificamente” quali fattori abbiano avuto un ruolo determinante nel successo o nel fallimento di una civiltà.

Per crollo di una società Diamond intende “la forma estrema tra vari e meno gravi tipi di decadenza”, ovvero “una riduzione drastica del numero della popolazione e/o della complessità politica, economica e sociale, in un’area estesa e nel corso di un prolungato lasso di tempo”. A questo concorrono, secondo la teoria dell'autore, cinque gruppi di possibili fattori concomitanti, relativi rispettivamente a
- problemi ambientali
- cambiamenti climatici non causati dall'uomo (in particolare, le cicliche oscillazioni, con intervalli decennali, tra condizioni climatiche più o meno favorevoli per un determinato popolo)
- ostilità delle popolazioni vicine
- esistenza di partner commerciali con cui si intrattengono relazioni amichevoli
- risposte che la società dà ai problemi che si trova ad affrontare.
Anche se una sola di queste serie di fattori può rivelarsi fatale per la sopravvivenza di una civiltà, la maggior parte dei casi di crolli del passato e del presente si è verificata per il sommarsi di diverse cause, che tendono ad acuirsi reciprocamente: una società che deve fronteggiare gravi problemi ambientali, ad esempio, si rivelerà più esposta agli attacchi di popolazioni ostili, o ad un peggioramento delle condizioni climatiche. L'unico gruppo di “fattori di crollo” sempre e comunque importante sarebbe l'ultimo dell'elenco sopra riportato, ovvero la reazione della società alle situazioni problematiche (reazioni legate alle istituzioni politiche, economiche e sociali della società, oltre che ai valori culturali caratteristici della popolazione): secondo Diamond, proprio nell'atteggiamento assunto di fronte ai pericoli risiederebbe la differenza fra le popolazioni che sono sopravvissute e quelle che non ci sono riuscite.
- Modalità spiegone spocchioso OFF -

Seriamente, leggetelo. Regalatelo. Consigliatelo. Rendetelo testo scolastico obbligatorio tramite referendum. Io, già che ci sono, gli aggiungo una stella, perché mi terrorizza ancora.

https://youtu.be/qjevV7xczqY

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.

I've just completed a second reading of this exemplary book of science writing. It's no joke to say I am doubly impressed.

Jared Diamond shows how careful reasoning can bring understanding while his love of the scientific investigative process pulls the reader into intimate contact with distant places and times that offer lessons for today. While his Guns, Germs and Steel is written in the same close analytical style, Collapse is the book Diamond was born to write.

His method investigates both failure and success to determine their causes. From what is learned our own modern world is surveyed to see what we can expect based on our current practice.

Human intelligence is no guarantee of group survival. People form societies having goals both material and emotional/moral that direct group behavior and that must meet the test of time in how the environment is handled. Being immersed in a society makes it difficult to see what appears to be right and proper at the time objectively. Being alive today gives the necessary psychological distance for us, if we have the skills of the author, to use the tools of science to examine the good moves or blunders of the past as dispassionately as possible. But as Diamond cautions us, we should take into account our removal from the scene before saying of failure, "how could they be so stupid?".

The title of this book attracts attention, but accounts of failure are only a part of what Diamond relates. After all, we are still here. Overall, he is able to propose certain factors, at least some of which come together in any specific situation to determine if a society will survive. A main point of the book is to show the reader how today's huge population and the worldwide interaction of humanity makes specific location beside the point. We are all on the road to success or failure together.

There's enough poignancy and drama for a novel. How is it that a heavily forested island, as Easter Island once was, comes to be barren of trees after humans, who are dependent on those trees, arrive? What are those huge stone heads for (they are actually full bodies with oversize heads) and why were every one of them that had been laboriously set in place deliberately toppled over? Believe it or not, the tools that were used to carve out the figures are still at the excavation sites as if they were suddenly dropped and abandoned. If you are in the least bit curious, this book will not only spark your interest but will satisfy you with the results of often laborious investigations, thousands of hours of work, by specialists in a number of fields.

The reader will be amazed at the techniques that are used to determine what happened long ago based on radio carbon dating or the detailed examination of ancient pollen, but even where objects are found positioned in relation to each other can tell a story. The author carefully but simply and quickly explains how each technique works. Like any good science writer, he wants the reader to know; to be part of an informed public.

Failure can come after an extended period of success. The Maya and the Norse settlers of Greenland continued for hundreds of years before the collapse of their societies in the face of environmental warnings they did not heed. The Norse, at the point of starvation as farming failed them, could directly observe the Inuit successfully fishing in kayaks, yet the Norse, no strangers to water, did not take up fishing. Diamond doesn't duck the obvious question, why?

As mentioned, we are still here and from the grocery store shelves appear to be doing fine, yet a host of issues threaten us and Diamond goes into detail on each. He speaks of himself as a cautious optimist. This book was written in 2006, 12 years ago (2018), so I thought I would investigate some of the issues Diamond mentions to see if things have improved, if measures are being taken to prevent our own planet-wide collapse.

From coral bleaching, world population increase, soil erosion and salinization, ground water depletion, deforestation and on through to CO2 reduction to address global warming I found little ground for optimism; all of these problems continue to increase driven by human demand.

We may not pull through despite knowing what is happening, but we definitely won't if we are ignorant, as is the American president. Collapse addresses that ignorance. It speaks to Santayana's warning that those who can't remember the past (ignorant of it) are doomed to repeat it. There were enough different independent societies at one time to allow for a failure here and there. We can't afford failure now.

As usual, very informative, I enjoyed listening to the audiobook while I read the ebook. This book was published originally in 2005, so a lot of this information has been disseminated and accepted wisdom for years. Not the author’s fault, but my own for letting this languish on my nonfiction TBR list for so long! I definitely want to read the third of the trilogy as soon as possible. I enjoy the author’s expertise and style, but I am no expert, more of an armchair science nerd.

I was mostly engrossed and read closely the first half of the book, about ancient societies that have collapsed. I enjoy well-written and researched history and popular science, and this definitely fits the bill for me. In the last quarter of the book, as Diamond covers big business and their role in environmental problems, and what’s happening in “modern” society – modern being the early 2000s when this book was written - I found myself skimming. So much has happened in the last 10 years or so, not the least of which being the Covid pandemic, which has caused grave concern about our ability to handle big problems.

I found his description of what he says are the 12 intertwined biggest modern issues to be dealt with in determining whether we collapse most disturbing. He says all 12 areas are interrelated, and must be resolved within next 50 years, but we don’t know if they’ll be “…resolved in pleasant ways of our own choice, or in unpleasant ways not of our choice, such as warfare, genocide, starvation, disease epidemics, and collapses of societies.” (p. 498) Yikes!

In the years since publication, so much he predicted has come to pass, it feels like we are already there - and at least here in the USA, it feels like political gridlock and polarization make good decision-making unlikely. I wish I could feel his cautious optimism, but he seems to feel like grassroots pressure on our elected officials could bring about positive change and good decisions. But this book was written before the extreme polarization and growing anti-science skepticism of the last several years, I’m not terribly hopeful. I do plan to read his third in the series as soon as possible to try and get his latest ideas.

It was quite the book to read at this time when the doomsday clock has advanced almost to midnight. No civilization is immune to collapse and we are arrogant if we think it will never happen here. We have no unified policies with humanities' interests at heart. The book is depressing and uplifting at the same time. Just as civilizations can collapse, so too they can survive. My greatest hope is that the world realizes that the Earth is a closed system, that resources do have a limit, that not everything is renewable, and that not all problems can be solved with more technology.

Having enjoyed Guns, Germs and Steel a lot, I was excited to read Collapse. However, it ended up being a mixed bag for me.

The first half, in which he talks about ancient societies, their circumstances, why they failed and why they didn't change their behaviour, was extremely interesting and fascinating. I enjoyed reading about the Maya, Iceland, Greenland (even Vinland) and some Polynesian islands a lot, and I can definitely recommend the book if you want to find out more about their history and fate.
The only thing that I'd criticise is that after a while, it felt quite repetitive. Jared Diamond mentions the major reasons for the failure of societies pretty early on, and the following chapters felt to me like he was trying to prove his point over and over again.

The second half, which is about modern societies, couldn't hold my interest, mainly because I couldn't shake off the feeling that a lot of the information there must be outdated by now. The book was published in 2005, and a lot has happened since then. I constantly felt like checking the current situation online, and because of that, the book felt more like a chore than a fun and interesting read.

So, if you're interested in the general premise and don't mind a lot of research to understand the current situation, this book could be for you.

This book explains reasons why a society may collapse or may succeed. It reviews great Empires that have vanished due to mistakes they made. Jared Diamond based the reasons for collapse on a five point framework.

The first is the environmental damage a country has produced. Many societies had cut down all their trees to build homes, heat homes and build tools. However, they either lacked the knowledge or did not consider to seed new trees to replace the old ones. Tree loss not only caused erosion and with it farm land loss but also left no place for animals to survive which they could hunt for food. Easter Islanders disappeared from history because the people consumed all of its trees. They left us with incredible statues made of red stone that weigh 12 tons but no decedents of those who built it.

Volcanic ash provides nutrients to the soil so societies who had volcanic activity had productive farming while those that did not farmed all the nutrients from the soil and then could not grow anything else. For example Japan’s volcanic activity provided the small island with arable land due to the nutrients in volcanic ash.

The second factor is climate change. The climate has changed over and over throughout history hurting some societies while helping others. Many became either drier, colder, wetter or hotter which the unfortunate people were not prepared to handle. For example, part of the reason the Norse who inhabited Greenland failed was due to sea ice formations preventing shipping trade with Norway.

The third factor is the proximity to hostile neighbors. If a country was not strong enough to hold off a neighbor it would likely be overtaken by them. The example given is the great Roman Empire’s collapse due to Germanic invasions.

The fourth factor is s loss of support from trading partners. Most societies needed goods that other countries could provide. If that support stopped the society may collapse. An example arises today as wealthy European countries rely on third world countries to supply oil to them.

The final factor is how the societies respond to the other four factors. The Inuit people, for example, survived living in Greenland (unlike the Norse) by using little wood. They built Igloos for houses, hunted whales for food and hunted seals to burn their blubber for heat. They also stretched seal skins to make kayaks.
Another example is the past societies of Highland New Guinea, Japan, Tikopia, and Tonga developed successful forestry management programs thus surviving to this day. On the other hand, Easter Island, Mangareva, and Norse Greenland failed to develop forestry management and collapsed as a result.

Fortunately Mr. Diamond sees that many countries today have rectified mistakes of the past so our humanity still has a chance to prosper well into the future.

Extensive study on what are the main factors that force societies to collapse and others not collapse.

Can be used build studies on modern day societies collapse also.