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Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or…
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Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive (2005)

by Jared Diamond

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12,189182515 (3.95)1 / 283
What caused some of the great civilizations of the past to collapse into ruin, and what can we learn from their fates? Diamond weaves an all-encompassing global thesis through a series of historical-cultural narratives. Moving from the prehistoric Polynesian culture of Easter Island to the formerly flourishing Native American civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya, the doomed medieval Viking colony on Greenland, and finally to the modern world, Diamond traces a pattern of catastrophe, spelling out what happens when we squander our resources, when we ignore the signals or environment gives us.… (more)
Member:AeroArne
Title:Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive
Authors:Jared Diamond
Info:Penguin (no date), Broché
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Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared M. Diamond (2005)

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 The Green Dragon: AUGUST - SPOILERS - Collapse26 unread / 26SylviaC, October 2014

» See also 283 mentions

English (167)  German (4)  Spanish (3)  French (3)  Danish (1)  Swedish (1)  Italian (1)  All languages (180)
Showing 1-5 of 167 (next | show all)
A great book which however should be evaluated critically. Unfortunately the comparative history of civilisations is an area in which few others look, so Diamond ends up being the one key reference and taken as an absolute.

It is a must read but then also one must seek critical reviews as in many areas this book suggests a more idealist pessimistic view of sustainable civilisation than the other many historical examples that counter this. ( )
  yates9 | Feb 28, 2024 |
My wife recommended this read to me ! I am not disappointed - impressive and believed to be true !
In the past, human societies probably disappeared because they destroyed their natural environment by exploiting its resources beyond what it could support. Let us meditate on their fate so as not to repeat their mistakes. This allegory by Jared Diamond has a universal scope and sums up the current collapse quite well... ( )
  Fouad_Bendris | Feb 16, 2024 |
Read about half in high school for a class and liked what I read. I don’t plan to pick the book back up though and finish it. I am just rating it here and marking it as read to get it off my to be read shelf. ( )
  Fortunesdearest | Feb 1, 2024 |
A fresh thesis and analytical approach: well worth a read. ( )
  sfj2 | Nov 25, 2023 |
Fascinating. ( )
  jaylcee | Nov 13, 2023 |
Showing 1-5 of 167 (next | show all)
Taken together, ''Guns, Germs, and Steel'' and ''Collapse'' represent one of the most significant projects embarked upon by any intellectual of our generation. They are magnificent books: extraordinary in erudition and originality, compelling in their ability to relate the digitized pandemonium of the present to the hushed agrarian sunrises of the far past. I read both thinking what literature might be like if every author knew so much, wrote so clearly and formed arguments with such care. All of which makes the two books exasperating, because both come to conclusions that are probably wrong.
 
Mr. Diamond -- who has academic training in physiology, geography and evolutionary biology -- is a lucid writer with an ability to make arcane scientific concepts readily accessible to the lay reader, and his case studies of failed cultures are never less than compelling.
 
Human behaviour towards the ecosphere has become dysfunctional and now arguably threatens our own long-term security. The real problem is that the modern world remains in the sway of a dangerously illusory cultural myth. Like Lomborg, most governments and international agencies seem to believe that the human enterprise is somehow 'decoupling' from the environment, and so is poised for unlimited expansion. Jared Diamond's new book, Collapse, confronts this contradiction head-on. It is essential reading for anyone who is unafraid to be disillusioned if it means they can walk into the future with their eyes open.
added by hailelib | editNature, William Rees (Jan 6, 2005)
 
Diamond is at pains to stress the objectivity he has brought to bear on a sequence of collapse scenarios that often continue to generate serious controversy, and for the most part (until the final chapter) leaves it up to the reader to draw down any conclusions from these scenarios that may be relevant to our own societies today.
 

» Add other authors (20 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Diamond, Jared M.primary authorall editionsconfirmed
Arneberg, AnneTranslatorsecondary authorall editionsconfirmed
Eklöf, MargaretaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Prichard, MichaelNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Epigraph
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command,
Tell that it's sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stampt on these lifeless things,
The hand that mockt them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

"Ozymandias," by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1817)
Dedication
To Jack and Ann Hirschy, Jill Hirschy Eliel and John Eliel, Joyce Hirschy McDowell, Dick (1929-2003) and Margy Hirschy, and their fellow Montanans: guardians of Montana's big sky
First words
A few summers ago I visited two dairy farms, Huls Farm and Gardar Farm, which despite being located thousands of miles apart were still remarkably similar in their strengths and vulnerabilities.
Quotations
Information from the Spanish Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
Aquellos desmoronamientos del pasado tenían tendencia a seguir cursos en cierto modo similares que constituían variaciones sobre un mismo tema. El aumento de población obligaba a las personas a adoptar medios de producción agrícola intensivos (como el regadío, la duplicación de cosechas o el cultivo en terrazas) y a extender la agricultura de las tierras óptimas escogidas en primer lugar hacia tierras menos rentables con el fin de alimentar al creciente número de bocas hambrientas. Las prácticas no sostenibles desembocaban en el deterioro medioambiental de uno o más de los ocho tipos de acabamos de enumerar, lo cual significaba que había que abandonar de nuevo las tierras poco rentables.
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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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What caused some of the great civilizations of the past to collapse into ruin, and what can we learn from their fates? Diamond weaves an all-encompassing global thesis through a series of historical-cultural narratives. Moving from the prehistoric Polynesian culture of Easter Island to the formerly flourishing Native American civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya, the doomed medieval Viking colony on Greenland, and finally to the modern world, Diamond traces a pattern of catastrophe, spelling out what happens when we squander our resources, when we ignore the signals or environment gives us.

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Book description
Five point framework: "environmental damage, climate change, hostile neighbors, friendly trade partners, and a society's responses to its environmental problems."

Contents: Prologue : a tale of two farms -- pt. 1: Modern Montana. Under Montana's big sky -- pt. 2: Past societies. Twilight at Easter -- The last people alive : Pitcairn and Henderson Islands -- The ancient ones : the Anasazi and their neighbors -- The Maya collapses -- The Viking prelude and fugues -- Norse Greenland's flowering -- Norse Greenland's end -- Opposite paths to success -- pt. 3: Modern societies. Malthus in Africa : Rwanda's genocide -- One island, two peoples, two histories : the Dominican Republic and Haiti -- China, lurching giant -- "Mining" Australia -- pt. 4: Practical lessons. Why do some societies make disastrous decisions? -- Big businesses and the environment : different conditions, different outcomes -- The world as a polder : what does it all mean to us today?

Includes bibliographical references (p. [529]-560) and index.  Illustrated.
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Penguin Australia

An edition of this book was published by Penguin Australia.

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