I can't believe that people think Collapse is readable.

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

13th book for 2018.

This is a big, detailed book that covers a lot of ground. To get a couple of things out of the way: it's not a repeat of Diamond's earlier book Guns, Germs, Steel; and it's not Diamond arguing for some sort of environmental determinism. Diamond believes that societal outcomes are related to three main factors:

Environment + Social Structures + Technology = Societal Outcome

This equation is misleading, as the factors interact (e..g, environment may limit trade, which then limits the sorts of technologies available; social structures directly affect what sorts technologies employed etc etc). As someone trained in geography, Diamond focuses more on the environmental side of things, but he's certainly not dismissive of the other two factors (and in fact goes to some length to discuss the political and technological factors where he thinks they are relevant).

The book covers (in great detail) a number of societies that have collapsed, in particular Easter Island's and the Norse Greenland colony.

In the case of Easter Island, he finds that several environmental factors made the ecology of the island particularly vulnerable to the Polynesian culture there (e.g., poor soils due to lack of volcanic fallout leading to slow regrowth of trees), unlike some other Pacific Islands were similar practices did not lead to societal collapse; in the case of Greenland Norse, a harsh environment could not in itself be blame, as he is at pains to point out, the Inuit with a very different societial/technological basis thrived.

He also covers societies that have done more or less better (Hispaniola vs Haiti, Japan vs China) and others where environmental factors are causing increasing stress (the chapter on Australia was particularly depressing).

The book ends with a summary of the various environmental trends that will become critical in the not too distant future (global warming; depletion of soils; over population; death of the oceans etc etc). Diamond offers excellent and heartfelt suggestions about how we could avoid going over the environmental cliff in all these cases.

Although the book was published some years ago, it's a must read for anyone wanting an overview of the state of global environment.

5-stars.

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.

A fascinating look at how different societies have failed, I read this many years ago, but just noticed that Jared Diamond has a new book coming out which reminded me. Years later and I still think of some of the examples from time to time. While this is not a quick or easy read, it was so compelling I never put it down for very long.

5/5 STARS. Jared Diamond examines why some societies have failed--and why some have been successful. An essential book.
A more complete review to come, if I find the time!

If you care about the world and the survival of the human race, then you must read this book. Period. Buy it now.

It will teach you more than you ever thought possible in one book. You will look at the world differently. It will expand your mind.

- Lilo
Author of The Light Who Shines

And just to be technically correct, this is not a review. It is a recommendation.

5-star topic.
Minus 1 for tragic presentation of materialism in the first half.
Minus 2 for farcical political economy in the second half.

The Tragic:
--The first half surveys a handful of historical collapses and a few survivals; frankly, I do not think there is need to give too much credit for a good choice of topic and some quantitative "fact"-gathering. This topic deserves much higher expectations.
--For direct critiques of Diamond from anthropologists, see: Questioning Collapse: Human Resilience, Ecological Vulnerability, and the Aftermath of Empire. Diamond falls under “environmental/geographical/ecological determinism”; this must be critiqued carefully:
i) On the surface, we may be tempted to swing the other way and focus on ideas driving social change (i.e. idealism), ex. The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, which critiques “ecological determinism” in Ch.5.
ii) However, this would create a false binary. The real tragedy of Diamond is presenting a diluted historical materialism, which is actually a foundational lens for analyzing history.
...Indeed, this lens starts with the material conditions which humans reproduce themselves (production/distribution/surplus/reproduction), but this must be carefully synthesized with other side of the coin: social relations, in particular class struggle/political bargaining power and contradictions.
...For my historical materialist checklist, see this review: A People's History of the World: From the Stone Age to the New Millennium
...For a clear presentation of historical materialism, see the “What is Politics?” video lectures. Start from the beginning video, and note these episodes:
-"6. Political Anthropology: When Communism Works and Why"
-"7. The Origins of Male Dominance and Hierarchy; what David Graeber and Jordan Peterson get wrong"
-"7.1 Material Conditions: Why You Can't Eliminate Sexism or Patriarchy by Changing Culture"
-"8. Materialism vs. Idealism: How Social Change Happens"
--Back to Diamond: I am always impressed how we have standardized bad writing (think “textbook” writing). In this case, we took end-of-civilization (literally) material, somehow diluted it from the visceral senses of human/social struggle, vomited the remains onto a canvas, smeared it absent-mindedly to avoid insightful frameworks, and spent 600 pages to watch it all dry. So, a standard textbook treatment of an interesting topic, nothing special (at least it was accessible), but this is just the better half…

The Farcical:
--The farce begins in the second half, on modern times. It's comical when enlightened minds from the great liberal institutions of higher education (judging by the numerous prestigious science awards with Mr. Diamond’s name on them) put their intellect to use on modern social issues. But frankly I expected something a bit more critical from the Geography department; this isn’t Business or American International Relations after all…
--The typical shits-and-giggles of the liberal intelligentsia analyzing environmental destruction in the modern world. “Capitalism” is never even named, while short-term profit-maximization from reckless legally-mandatory plundering is portrayed as irrational behavior because long-term costs exceed short-term gain for both the public and the plunderers. Scintillating analysis

--Nothing on capitalism’s perfectly rational (for the laws of capitalism) profit-seeking behavior of externalizing costs, where environment is an obvious candidate to take the burden (as well as poor people/countries, more on this later). Try:
-Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System
-The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power
--Nothing on the market economy’s value system that prioritizes exchange-value (market price) over use-value, thus rampant commodification and waste. Ex. a forest has no market exchange-value (despite tremendous use-value) until it is:
a) Cut down and sold as commodities.
b) On fire (firefighting services as economic transactions).
c) Privatized and sold for speculation on financial markets, enclosing the “Commons” and kicking others out to create artificial scarcity. This is, after all, how the land market was created (“The Enclosures”) which also created the labour market (dispossessed serfs with nothing left but to sell their labour) and thus capitalism (the “market society”). “Green Capitalism” is the fresh new Enclosures to further expand capitalist market commodification/private property (ex. carbon offset markets).
...Just picture Diamond prancing down this last path, chanting the “Tragedy of the Commons” myth about how Commons (cooperation) is actually the unsustainable social relation because of free-riders. This completely neglects the diversity of Commons social arrangements spanning across cultures and time (Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action), as Commons cooperation is confused with open-access under capitalism (which ironically promotes free-riding, i.e. individual short-term maximization at social cost: https://youtu.be/xcwXME-PNuE )
-Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World
-Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: or, How Capitalism Works—and How It Fails

--There is one sentence on how executives are legally obligated to maximize profits, immediately followed by placing the responsibility on the public to protest. So, a child’s perception of power structures, got it. “Democracy” is just Western political democracy's political theater with periodic token elections, whereas economic democracy is scrubbed from consciousness (replaced with consumer choice “free market”, hooray!).
-Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present
-The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement
-Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism

--If my use of "liberal" confuses you, I'm referring to liberal economics:
1) Clinton's smiling rhetoric but economic property rights/social power/funding still perpetuates one-dollar-one-vote. Refuses to acknowledge the dangers of accumulated wealth (i.e. money-power, money making money), the profitability of wars/imperialism/debt peonage/externalizing costs, etc.
2) The imperialism of private accumulation, i.e. Lockean property rights of those who developed the land deserve to own it. I mean, there's the whole genocidal displacement and colonial destruction of competition to challenge the idea of "development". But even if we accept "development", the serfs who were kicked off their land and forced into the labour market, the plantation slaves and indentured "coolies" and today's global division of labor, i.e. the backbone of industrialization/production, what sliver of the pie do they own?
...Diamond’s portrayal of the modern world is that of independent nations. Zero sense of the global division of labor and imperialism. Literally, unequal trade deals are blamed on “unsophisticated” poor countries making bad deals with sophisticated rich countries. Enough!

--Accessible intro to imperialism "kicking away the ladder":
-The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions
-The Agrarian Question in the Neoliberal Era: Primitive Accumulation and the Peasantry
-Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism

--Deeper dives:
-foundational: Perilous Passage: Mankind and the Global Ascendancy of Capital
-Debt: The First 5,000 Years
-Capital and Imperialism: Theory, History, and the Present
-Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World
-The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World
-The Veins of the South Are Still Open: Debates Around the Imperialism of Our Time

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

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".

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.

"Colapso es una trampa ¡aléjense!". Pensé que esta debería ser la primera frase de mi reseña de este voluminoso ensayo del gran Jared Diamond, pero en el último momento me arrepentí y me di cuenta que era injusto para con un libro al que le gaste 200 banderitas Post It (¡chanfle! igual la frase quedo encabezando la reseña).

Por dónde comenzar a describir mi complicada experiencia con el libro.

Tal vez debería empezar contándoles que fue la segunda vez que leí un libro en compañía (o más bien debería decir "simultáneamente").

La lectura conjunta del libro fue la segunda experiencia piloto que emprendí con un buen amigo de lecturas, el nunca bien ponderado Juan Camilo (lean la reseña de Colapso escrita por el mismo Johnson aquí... y por ahí derecho lean todas sus otras reseñas ¡son muy originales!).

Creo que Juan Camilo coincidiría conmigo en una cosa: ¡fue una mala elección!. Ya habíamos leído "Crisis" del mismo autor y nos había ido bien. Pero no esperábamos que Colapso hiciera colapsar el futuro de nuestro piloto.

Primer problema: el libro es muy largo: 720 páginas en la edición de "Debolsillo" (¡de bolsillo!) y unas 1000 y cacho en la edición de Kindle. Pero creímos que ese no sería problema; al fin y al cabo libros tan o más largos se han escrito sobre la divulgación de la historia y la biogeografía. El problema es que a Colapso le sobran como 350 páginas.

Segundo problema: como lo menciona el mismo Diamond desde el principio (no vimos las señales), el contenido de este libro es parte de sus curso en la Universidad de California en los Ángeles. Mala cosa. El tono del libro es justamente ese: el tono muy académico de las notas de un curso del afamado Profesor Jared Diamond. El resultado: un verdadero ladrillo para quiénes no matriculamos la materia con Diamond. Imagino que los estudiantes del posgrado en historia de la UCLA disfrutaran del exceso de detalles en el libro, pero los lectores desprevenidos del autor de "Armas, Gérmenes y Acero" sinceramente nos sentimos traicionados (¿por los editores?).

Tercer problema: el libro comienza con el peor capítulo, "La Montana moderna". Una descripción extremadamente promenorizada (como para no usar polisílabos más largos) de los problemas ambientales que enfrenta la región de Montana en los Estados Unidos (¡¿a quién le importa realmente?!) en el tiempo en el que fue escrito el libro (2003). El autor incluso nos "recrea" con algunas transcripciones completas de las declaraciones de los vecinos de Montana (¡aburrido!).

¿Dónde estaban los editores de Diamond cuando el ganador del Pulitzer decidió comenzar su libro con un tema tan poco universal y aburrido? (espanta lectores). Tal vez lo de "Pulitzer" responda mi pregunta.

Les confieso que si no fuera por Juan Camilo, habría abandonado el libro en la mitad del primer capítulo.

Hasta aquí los problemas.

¿En que me gaste entonces las 200 banderitas?

Todo hay que decirlo: la idea del libro es ¡genial! (como lo fueron también las ideas de los otros dos libros de esta "saga", Armas, gérmenes y acero y Crisis, en los enlaces, mis reseñas de esos buenos libros).

Odio repetir las descripciones, pero no sobra mencionar que el libro enumera, describe y analiza el surgimiento y desaparición (o éxito) de una serie de sociedades del pasado y del presente, por la acción de una multitud de factores (que Diamond, como lo hace en sus otros libros, identifica y analiza).

El libro estudia los casos muy sonados (pero no tan bien conocidos, como termina uno descubriendo después de leer el libro) de la desaparición de la compleja sociedad de la Isla de Pascua, las multitudinarias sociedades Mayas o los pueblos anasasi en el suroeste de los Estados Unidos (que, al menos yo, conocí por la serie Cosmos). Pero también otros casos menos conocidos del colapso de sociedades del pasado, como es el caso de otros pueblos en islas del pacífico polinesio o los vikingos de Groenlandia (mis capítulos preferidos). Finalmente realiza un análisis de la gestión de los recursos y el inminente colapso (o éxito) de pueblos del presente, desde el fatídico caso de los campesinos ruandeses hasta la Australia minera.

No puedo decir que no aprendí muchísimo leyendo estos capítulos. Si algo bueno tienen los libros de Diamond de biogeografía es que terminas aprendiendo como un chucho sobre lugares del mundo que en la vida visitaras.

Pero tampoco les puedo decir que disfrute de los cientos de páginas dedicados a cada caso.

Que no se confunda sin embargo mi desazón como lector, con una falta de justa admiración como científico por el trabajo de documentación de Diamond. ¡Tremendo trabajo! Pero definitivamente no para un libro divulgativo (o no en la forma en la que quedo escrito).

Como siempre los últimos capítulos, en los que Diamond recoge todas las enseñanzas de su pormenorizado análisis de las sociedades del pasado y del presente, contienen una valiosa colección de lecciones sobre las malas o buenas gestiones que le estamos dando al planeta, que como dice un proverbio indígena "no lo heredamos de los abuelos, sino que se lo estamos administrando a nuestros hijos".

Me queda solo una pregunta. Los historiadores del futuro nos verán como una copia avanzada de los extraños habitantes de Rapa Nui, que teniendo el colapso ambiental de su isla en frente de las narices no supieron reaccionar a tiempo, o acaso nos verán como como los habitantes de Nueva Guinea. que resolvieron el problema con un enfoque de "abajo hacia arriba" (de la gente a las corporaciones).

¡"Amanecerá" y veremos! (y es amanecerá, es un amanecerá casi inmediato: ¡en 10 o 20 años lo sabremos!).

Si el Profesor Diamond se los pide (o sí son como niños que tienen que meter el dedo en la llama para probar el fuego), lean Colapso.

En caso contrario, no lo hagan: ¡hay muchos otros buenos textos esperándolos!