Through archaeological evidence, we can track ensuing sagas of deforestation, followed by rapid loss of topsoil, then a plummet in human population.

Diamond shows how each isle must have seemed a paradise to early settlers, heavily timbered and thronging with wild foods. Now his attention focuses on the rapid arc from triumph to decline that many of our ancestors lived through, watching in helpless despair as their cultures overturned, often from their very zenith.Įaster Island (Rapa Nui) and Norse Iceland illustrate what can happen when a people's daily needs collide with their habitat's limited carrying capacity. That bestseller explored how Western peoples developed the technologies and immunities that allowed them to dominate the world. The lesson in a nutshell: learn from history, or risk repeating it.Ī UCLA professor, MacArthur Fellow and winner of the National Medal of Science, Jared Diamond proved his gift for conveying serious issues in lucid, riveting books like Guns, Germs and Steel. Then, globe-hopping from Australia and China to Montana and Southern California, Diamond surveys how modern societies are adapting to even greater perils. Supplementing historical records with discoveries in archaeology and climatology, he offers a guided tour of crashes and narrow escapes, ranging from Viking Greenland and the Yucatan Mayans to the Anasazi peoples of America's southwest. In COLLAPSE: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jared Diamond shows how past cultures toppled, sometimes with little warning. Others expect the future will take care of itself - solutions will arise naturally out of market forces, or we'll just continue our run of incredible luck.

Some anticipate a biblically-scripted apocalypse, or else a breakdown into ecological hell. Do you imagine the future will be better, transformed by steady progress and rising human wisdom? Is your picture one of steady - or sudden - decline? Optimism and pessimism come in ironic shades.

Diamond jared collapse