So Diamond wrote the great book, Gun, Germs, and Steel that rightly won the Pulitzer.

Diamond seems to have said, hey, I can parlay that success and shoehorn a book that lets me talk about the places I love personally, like Montana and Papa New Guinea with the never ending lamentations over climate change and the environment.

Also, I felt bamboozled. The Collapse Diamond is referencing is almost all about his overwrought environmental alarmism, and second, major aspects of the book deal with ancient cultures like the Anasazi, Pitcairn, Easter island, and ancient Norse settlements in Greenland.

Backstory here: I read the Dawn of everything awhile back and the book was long and tedious and really brought into focus how much of ancient anthropology is a con.

99% of Humanities research submitted never gets referenced again. Now, over 50% of science research has been shown to unreplicable— meaning, no one is able to get the same results the experimenter claims they did.

In other words, huge swathes of academia are little more than workfare for the mediocre…and then there’s arch/anthropology: take away pollen and ice core carbon dating and the ubiquitous midden analysis and anthropologist and archaeologist have close to zero actual evidence.

Or said another way, a midden, an ancient shit pile, is the sine qua non of info on ancient cultures that lacked writing.

Can you imagine what future studies of us would ascertain from just studying where we dumped the food we ate? What would they determine our culture was like? Well, they would have no idea.

So there’s my rant on this which Collapse just happened to trigger.

Otherwise, the book is a sometimes interesting but pedantic look at isolated areas that underwent population failure. The great share of these failure were due to population rising during good times where rain and land was good and then being stressed mightily when the weather turned poor and all those people starting getting angry and hungry and began tearing at the roots of these societies.

Are their lessons for the vast technological modern West? Sure, but not nearly as much as the fanboy Diamond supposes.

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

Voy a ir al grano y sin anestesia: A menos que usted esté haciendo una investigación técnica o asistiendo al curso del autor en la UCLA, no debería leer este libro.

No les voy a hacer lo que Jared Diamond me hizo a mi: Me obligó a leer casi 700 páginas de datos, tecnicismos, términos complejos, relatos bastante densos antes de entregarme "el curibito" del libro. El quid del asunto. Yo lo voy a relatar en unos cortos párrafos.

Todos los que han leído al bien respetado Diamond saben que es un gran narrador de historias y Colapso no fue la excepción. La narración es impecable, entretenida y con todo el rigor científico (creo yo, que no soy científico) que merece una empresa como escribir este libro. Entonces el tema no es la narrativa, sino la extensión técnica de los detalles que a mi modo de ver, para un libro divulgativo debió ser más económica.

Llegando al final, tan anhelado después de una maratón de lectura de casi un mes Diamond deja entrever sus apuntes finales, conclusiones y recomendaciones para las sociedades modernas. Aunque leí el libro 15 años después de su publicación, este autor es muy pertinente en sus apreciaciones, casi todas ellas muy contemporáneas y apegadas con fuerza al discurso mundial actual sobre el cambio climático, el consumo de los recursos tan acelerado, la crisis energética, entre otros asuntos de gran interés por nuestros días.

Es un libro que te tocará tu fibra de conservación del medio ambiente, del consumo responsable y de las decisiones diarias. Te pondrá en el centro del problema y te relatará las opciones que como "consumidor" deberías tomar para proteger nuestro debilitado planeta.

Dado el timing con que leí el libro, también me parece valioso resaltar la transformación de China que le resultará evidente al comparar lo que se conoce hoy del gigante asiático vs. lo que hace 15 años eran apenas perspectivas de un gran cambio. Entre otros ejemplos de sociedades antiguas y modernas, exitosas y colapsadas termina Colapso siendo uno de esos libros que no quise haber empezado pero que me enorgullece haber terminado.

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?

Five stars for the importance of the topic, three stars because it's so repetitive. I get it! We're all going to cannibalize each other. Well, maybe not us, personally, but likely our grandchildren or great-grandchildren.

Sigh.

As I have read this book the bush fire crisis in Australia was making news worldwide. Jared Diamond devoted an entire chapter to Australia in this 15 year old book and it made stark reading considering. He hardly covered fire that devours but had a lot to say about water, agriculture and mining. Mining is huge in this country to the point that multi national and local miners can campaign very hard, with the mass media heavyweight assistance of US plutocrat Rupert Murdoch, to get what they want. Governments will fall; some people do become silent as the fear of a smashing in the media as to their thoughts on the degradation of resources for cheap return are generally turned into some cheap point scoring propaganda on behalf of vested interests. Can I complain? Can I hell! Me and my generation, boomers, has made a mint from the resource sector via our superannuation with fast and easy returns and now in our dotage have a lot to yell about at those bludging whining youngsters. Good grief! Who are these people to complain about us receiving tax credits back from the PAYE taxpayer for our 1.9 million dollar worth of shares? 6,000 odd bucks a pop for that little investment. I’m alright Jack.


Which is why, depending on one’s point of view, the more interesting chapter in this book is 14 Why Do Some Societies Make Disastrous Decisions? The premise of this chapter can cover the individual as well. There is rational behaviour behind all decisions no matter how (seemingly) poor. And here’s (seemingly) one for any of you that read my scribble. Diamond discusses the foolishness of cotton growing in Queensland and northern New South Wales that depletes water resources from the likes of the Murray Darling downstream. This is a big deal and nothing to do with one’s political belief. Rural (and with that very conservative) electorates downstream have complaining for years and years about water loss. Google is your friend to read up on this. So with cotton, drought etc. what do we get? Dubbo, a town in central NSW, easing water restrictions for the watering of one’s garden. And what a debate! How’s this for one news item on the subject pork chops?
https://7news.com.au/news/environment...

For a more cerebral read look at this.
ttps://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/scrapping...


Diamond writes that he is hopeful that correct decisions will be made with pressure from the public in general and gives many reasons as to why this has been successful. Again this all depends on ones point of view but after watching the power of the media to support and sway opinion in Australia over the issue of the environment (and tax credits on fully franked shares) I have my doubts.

It was suggested to me that some of the research may have been superseded, and a very quick internet read early on showed there was some thoughts as to the book becoming dated. Be that as it may it has been a good read and worth the effort.

Collapse is even better than Guns, Germs, and Steel. And this time Diamond focuses, not on how environments have shaped people, but how we have transformed our environments. He looks at various places that suffered environmental collapse in the past, like Yucatan or Greenland, then looks at some relative success stories like Japan or the Dominican Republic. He mainly covers places where he has both personal experience and great background knowledge. The resulting tour is marvelously insightful, and close to the finest non-fiction writing out there. But his examples leave out the sites of history's greatest environmental collapses and challenges, across North Africa and the Middle East.

Extraordinary in scope. Makes the news far more interesting even than it already was. However, I withhold star 5 because someone should have run the manuscript by me. Many awkward sentences. Too many sentences that aren't, quite. Or that aren't by a long shot. Penguin? Editors? Anyone? Such a noble and otherwise impressive undertaking deserves better care before reaching the public. But yes. A grand and very fine book indeed.

Diamond's prior 'Guns, Germs & Steel' addresses the reasons why some peoples in some areas of the world produced civilizations and others didn't. The factors emphasized are material and the subtext is that these factors, not moral or racial inferiority, were decisive.
'Disaster' tells the other side of the story, namely why some cultures and civilizations fail while others succeed. This is done through case studies such as a comparison of Viking Greenland (failure) to the Inuits (success) and Viking Iceland (near failure, current recovery) and Creole Haiti (failure) to the Spanish Dominican Republic (success). There are many other examples, including contemporary Montana, but these are the clearest comparisons.
A common thread of the exemplary failure is that of populations outstripping resources. Another is that of cascading effects once saturation occurs.
While the outlook is bleak, Diamond is at pains to point to success stories and to discuss the means by which good decisions have been and might be made as regards environmentally sustainable practices.

Jared Diamond's non-fiction work Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail & Succeed quite definitely has an exceedingly broad scope, attempting to discern the variables that cause a country or a specific geographic landscape to survive or to encounter a gradual or a precipitous decline. The areas examined initially may not appear to have much in common but the author focuses on the ways in which various stresses occur within a group of people and their responses to whatever imperils their continued health & future existence, ranging from New Guinea to Rwanda-Burundi to Easter Island to Greenland.



Interestingly, the book begins with an area of particular interest to Jared Diamond & his family, Montana, and a consideration of how wealthy folks buying 3rd or 4th homes in that state, so-called "trophy or investment homes" that are seldom visited, together with large-scale mining interests bringing destructive side-effects such as toxic waste have changed the character of the western state.

To be sure, there is ambiguity in the manner in which the author portrays specific declines but his investigation of cultures under stress & the decisions each makes or fails to make seem in each case quite interesting, even if not always completely captivating. In the case of Easter Island, the causes for ecological demise are internal, including deforestation & suggesting a parallel with many places around the globe today, Haiti included among them.

Jared Diamond demonstrates how Maya culture differed from Anasazi, with the former having written records but no pack animals, thus making expansion or movement less possible. Mayan calendars date from 3,114 BC, 2,500 years prior to "New World" calendars. Mayan diets are examined & it is noted that unlike Aztec & Inca cultures, Mayans were largely rooted in place, making empire & also war less possible.

Collapse has an environmental emphasis but a sociological component as well, for example suggesting that with the Vikings "trading led to raiding" but in the case of Greenland, a sense of racial superiority or ethnocentrism prevented the Viking "colonists" in Greenland from learning survival techniques from the native Inuit who might have served as willing partners, eventually leading to the demise of their initially prosperous settlement. Again, unwholesome treatment of the land + an innate arrogance precipitated the downfall, as the Norse population bespoiled the land, failed to adapt to a new landscape, sought to preserve customs that were alien to a different part of the world & looked upon the native Inuit as competition.



Meanwhile, the Tikopia people of New Guinea seem to have developed a naturally benevolent form of sustainability of their own lands & but often at a "stiff price". They practiced crop rotation & a balance of nature but also engaged in population control that involved euthanasia, infanticide & clan wars.

Japan also has done an excellent job of retaining nature in the midst of a very crowded environment, achieving zero population growth, though the Ainu on the northern island of Hokkaido were made dependent on Japan & weaned from their own self-sustaining mode of life. It seems that in Japan the seafood diet meant an absence of cows, goats & other animals that were not always advantageous for the soil and also the ruling Shogan & local guards served as ecological stewards of the land.

Thomas Malthus is cited because populations often expand well beyond the ability of the soil to produce sufficient crops for increasing humanity because "populations expand exponentially & food production expands arithmetically".

Other variables explored include people following historically valued but outmoded patterns of behavior toward the land (which the author labels "sunk cost effect"), the effect of globalization & how high to extreme population density can be a factor in the cause of genocide, with Rwanda-Burundi as an example. One of the most compelling images is a map with an overlap of nations that are both environmental & political trouble-spots today. Beyond that, globalism is said to link us all, both via technology & increasing toxic waste.

Jared Diamond's Collapse appeared in 2005 & some elements of the book now seem somewhat dated. Presently people tend to avoid terminology that references "1st World vs. 3rd World" countries, etc. The material covered is indeed often treated with a broad brush & there is more than a little repetition in the book. Also, there are some rather obscure words & with a 550+ page book, a glossary would not have represented a burdensome expansion.

That said, I enjoyed the curious approach of Jared Diamond's scholarship, the portrayed linkages between overcrowding & deforestation, the author's commentary about the preeminent importance of sustainability & his guardedly positive sense of the future of our planet.



Jared Diamond has an eclectic background with degrees in Anthropology, History, Physiology & Bioethics from Harvard & Cambridge Universities. *There are 24 pages of black & white photos, including images of Easter Island & Angkor Wat, with the latter treated by Diamond in an epilogue to the book. Collapse is recommended by the Cambridge University Programme for Sustainability Leadership.

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.

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