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.

The halfway point review:

One question I've been wrestling with as I read, as I watch these societies move slightly past sustainability, as I read about societal collapse and the squandering of resources by the wealthy and then the inevitable cannibalism that always seems to show up in the last act, I keep asking myself how the environment became a "political issue." There's no question that environmental resources aren't infinite, yet it seems like the majority of people…or at least the loudest faction…care less about human life on earth than their own comfort and status. Or else, how can they justify placing jobs, business interests, or anything else ahead of the environment in their values?

Is it because environmental damage is such a gradual process? If so, we need to come up with some way to drive home the importance of creating a sustainable way of living. Politicians hedging around environmental issues--while placing these issues on the same level of importance as gays in the military--is clearly not getting us anywhere. Literature on the dangers of global warming and about the human effects on the environment isn't going to get the point across to those who willfully avoid learning about the topic.

Does the environmental movement need more advertisements? More celebrity endorsements?

I hate asking rhetorical questions, even if my goal is to generate conversation, so my hypothesis, without any evidence to support it, is YES: we need a much fucking better PR department, and we need it quickly. If we are going to keep the global society from reaching the point of some real collapse, we need to change the rhetoric with which we talk about the "environment." The environment is an abstract "out there" that doesn't necessarily include human babies or grandchildren. The way we abstractly think of "the environment" makes this separation of humans from their environment easier. We need rhetoric that makes it clear that when we speak of "the environment," what we are really concerned with is the continued ability for humanity to survive on this planet. What we're talking about isn't separate from people, physically or ethically.

I'll end my halfway point review by bringing up the personal guilt that reading these pages has reawakened in me. Reading about the way the Easter Islanders squandered resources building the tremendous statues and headpieces for the glorification of rich people has reminded me of my own complicity. I've always thought of myself as an environmentalist: I take the light-rail whenever possible, recycle, eat with an awareness of where my food comes from. But, even as someone passionate about the environment, I've spent several years working at a bank. I've spent my time too focused on my own education to dedicate much time to preservation…which is what I'm complaining about others doing. What have I truly done to rebel against a society that places greed and opulence above sustainability? I've found ways to reduce the damage that I inflict, but I have done nothing to challenge my society's destructive way of being. So, what right do I have to climb up on my soap-box?

Several straw men were sacrificed to make this book possible.

Cuốn sách giấy khổ lớn với 800 trang nội dung và 50 trang giới thiệu tài liệu đọc thêm này quả là một công trình đáng giá nghiên cứu về những tác động của môi trường đến vận mệnh của một xã hội, và của thế giới.
Trước khi đọc cuốn này, mình đã hiểu rằng môi trường rất quan trọng, rằng môi trường đang xuống cấp hàng ngày, rằng chúng ta có thể góp phần làm môi trường tốt hơn qua từng hành động nhỏ, bla bla bla... Nhưng khi đọc Sụp đổ, nhìn môi trường ở khía cạnh vĩ mô, ở góc độ quản lý tầm chính phủ và quốc tế thì mới nhận thức được sự nghiêm trọng của tình hình thực tế mà mình đang trải nghiệm.
Cuốn sách đáng đọc. Đọc để biết sợ hãi với những điều tưởng nhỏ nhặt, mà đã góp phần lớn làm nên sự sụp đổ của những đế chế hùng mạnh trong quá khứ. Đọc, để hiểu và ý thức hơn về thế giới hôm nay. Đọc, để vẫn hi vọng, và mỗi ngày cố gắng vì một cuộc sống bền vững cho thế hệ con cháu ngày mai.

Letto nel 2023 risulta un po' datato

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.

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.

The author of this book was extremely long-winded, so I am going to do the opposite with this review and keep it short and simple.

I went into this read excited by the content. I love history and I love little known history even more. This book was a blend of past, present and future regarding how humans are affecting the planet. The basic premise was good and the examples the author chose to write about were perfect. I rank the chapters that discussed Easter Island, various other islands and Greenland’s Viking colony the highest because they were fascinating. The other chapters contained some interesting information too but weren’t as engaging. I kept dozing off while reading them and considered skimming through them more times than I care to admit.

Three stars to a book that needed a few hundred pages of unnecessary extra removed from it.

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.

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.

Collapse is a book which takes a look at societies both past and present to examine in depth how each of these societies failed or succeeded according to a five point framework laid out by the author Jared Diamond.

The framework can be summarized as follows:
1. Damages societies cause to their environment and whether or not that damage is reversible concerning things like deforestation, resource extraction, soil erosion, sustainability of fisheries and other food sources.
2. Climate change and how societies have either adapted or failed to adapt to dry climates, wet climates and cold climates as well as the different challenges they pose for the other factors within this framework.
3. Hostile neighbors and how such hostilities have affected a society's ability to thrive in their environments.
4. Trade with neighbors and how the dependence on some trade partners has contributed to the rise or fall of different nations throughout history.
5. The last and probably most important factor is how a society chooses to address the problems they are facing. This is dependent largely on a society's politics, cultural values, economics and social institutions according to Jared Diamond.

Each chapter is more or less a case study of a different society or civilization that either collapsed or still exists today. Diamond puts these societies under the microscope of his five point framework to determine how they collapsed or how they overcame the challenges they faced. The idea is to look at the past/present in order to determine how we as a globalized citizens can solve the problems currently threatening our existence today. The challenges are daunting and although the book has a seemingly pessimistic outlook overall it's certainly not impossible for humanity to overcome them. Jared Diamond considers himself a cautious optimist when considering the environmental, climate and political problems facing us today and remains hopeful we'll find the political will to enact the changes necessary to avoid the collapse that could be facing us in just a few decades time.

I personally found the book to be very well written, researched and most of all eye opening. I think it should be mandatory reading for the inhabitants of this fragile world we share and depend on together.

Although I only gave this book three stars, I can recommend it a little bit over that. I found it interesting, but not quite as compelling as I might have if I wasn’t already familiar with some parts of the story. I took graduate classes in International Relations, specializing in China as well as international political economy, so I didn’t find any surprises in the abstract background to Collapse.

Some very intriguing parts were the stories of collapse of vanished societies, as many have noted in other reviews. But also quite enjoyable were the explanations for why others did not collapse, especially the near-miss of the Tokugawa Shogunate as prosperity almost led them to devastate their forests — it is almost an accident of history that the Japanese home islands aren’t as barren as Easter Island.

The chapter on modern Australia was also quite eye-opening. After reading this litany of miseries, all I can say to my Australian friends is “Good luck, mate. You’re gonna need it.” I think everyone living on the edge of the Pacific Ocean needs to spend more time studying the ENSO — El Niño Southern Oscillation. It will certainly have a major impact on California, too.

Perhaps my favorite portion of the book were Chapters 14 and 15, in which Diamond explores societal responses to these threats.

Chapter 14 is titled “Why Do Some Societies Make Disastrous Decisions?” and begins with a tidy discussion of decision theory and cognitive biases. I suspect a professional Decision Theorist might scoff at the oversimplification and lacunae of his explanation, but Diamond can place it in a riveting real-world context that cements how a careful analysis can help us understand such twisted and paradoxical situations. (In this I am reminded of the fascinating classic n  Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisisn.)

This chapter allowed him to answer a question he was asked by a student: “When that person cut down the last palm tree on Easter Island, what on earth could they have been thinking?” turns out to have a rather obvious answer: by the time that last palm was cut down, centuries of deforestation had already taken place, and the crucial cultural importance of those trees would have long since disappeared.

Chapter 15, “Big Business and the Environment,” is also quite absorbing. Diamond contrasts the very different environmental impact of two oil fields, and continues with the particular problems of hardrock mining, coal mining, logging and fisheries. His inquiry into why some corporations and industries are are more amenable to social pressure casts a minor hopeful note into the symphony of despair.

There are a few complaints that need to be aired.

First, Diamond could really use a forceful editor with an eye towards clarity. The professor is very prolix, with a pedantic tendency to repeat himself. For example, every time Diamond referred to palynology, he felt compelled to explain it again. In such a large book which undoubtedly took many years to compose, this is understandable — but not in the final draft. That’s why editors are supposed to employed. Perhaps asking him to be succinct is asking too much, but it would be nice to nudge him in that direction.

Second, while his “Further Reading” appendix is welcome, it doesn’t excuse the lack of a bibliography, especially since index doesn’t seem to cover that appendix.

Finally, the book starts out on a weak note in Montana. His affection for the Bitterroot Valley is understandable, but its problems are nowhere near as engrossing and dramatic as those that follow, and the relevance of a struggling rural community tucked deep inside the world’s wealthiest nation makes it hard to understand its relevance. It would have been best left to personalize and clarify a concluding chapter, perhaps, although the chapter on Australia did a more than adequate job of showing how pressing the threats of collapse can be in a modern first-world society.

In the end, while this book was adequately absorbing, it didn’t bring me much closer to my quest. No book I’ve yet found has adequately discussed the question “How likely is it that the entire global civilization will collapse in the coming century, leading to centuries of a new ‘dark age’ of reduced life expectancy, welfare and technology?”
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