Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive by Jared Diamond

[Simon]

I found this book an excellent read and was an interesting (to me) approach to the "collapse" of various societies. Diamond's main thesis is that unsustainable practices have cause each of his selected societies to destroy themselves with an obvious parallel with out present times. Rather than provide my own detailed review, I have lifted someone else's directly from the  Amazon.co.uk site. There are many reviews and the following most closely mirrored my own opinion.

All rights and copyrights acknowledged.

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By    Dr John F Barker, Gaia Watch, Registered Charity, (Sheffield, South Yorkshire, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive (Hardcover)
Jared Diamond (2005). "Collapse. How societies choose to fail or succeed".Viking Penguin.
Jared Diamond, Professor of Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles, attempts to analyse why some past and present day societies have collapsed.
The greater part of the bulk of his massive (575 pages) carefully researched book, consists of a set of case studies of past societies like Easter Island and the Maya civilisation, and modern societies such as Rwanda and China. These studies are based on published evidence (archaeological, historical and other evidence), the authors own on-ground explorations, and his interviews with present day residents and analysts. Diamond concludes his book by attempting to draw out from his analyses, practical lessons for society today.

For each society examined, unsustainable practices were identified, the importance of individual practices for societal decline varying from society to society. Deforestation may have led to soil erosion with consequential reduced agricultural productivity, or even such a total loss of available timber that boats needed for fishing or trade could no longer be made. Food production may have been attempted on land not really suitable for sustained production, so that yields fell off drastically over the years. Animal populations, which succoured a hunting society, may have been over-exploited.

On top of such unsustainable practices, climate change sometimes played a significant part in societal decline. Then sometimes hostile neighbours or loss of trading partners were significant adverse factors. But amplifying the effects of all other factors was population growth, which meant there were more mouths to feed.

The title of the book is a little unfortunate: 'Collapse' in a few of the cases is perhaps too strong a word. And while societies may ignore environmental warnings, surely they do not really 'choose' to collapse. And I wish the author had said more about ancient middle-east civilizations (not included among the case studies).

Nevertheless, this book provides a very valuable insight into societal collapse and decline and it provides a cogent warning to modern society to mend its ways before it is too late. Also it is a book which shows how population growth has in all the cases examined been one of the causes of societal retrogression or collapse. And I do admire the authors ability to collect and collate so successfully such a mass of interesting, diverse types of information.

I end with Diamond's warning from one of the case studies:
"The parallels between Easter Island and the whole modern world are chillingly obvious".

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