Collapse

How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed: Revised Edition

Jared Diamond

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English

Penguin US
01 April 2011

Classical history & classical civilisation; Social groups; Sociology & anthropology; Central government policies; Mathematics & Sciences; Human geography; The environment

In Jared Diamond’s follow-up to the Pulitzer-Prize winning Guns, Germs and Steel, the author explores

how climate change, the population explosion and political discord create the

conditions for the collapse of civilization. Diamond is also the author of Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis

Environmental damage, climate change, globalization,

rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were all factors in the

demise of societies around the world, but some found solutions and persisted. As

in Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond

traces the fundamental pattern of catastrophe, and weaves an all-encompassing

global thesis through a series of fascinating historical-cultural narratives.

Collapse moves from the Polynesian cultures on Easter Island to the flourishing

American civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya and finally to the doomed

Viking colony on Greenland. Similar problems face us today and

have already brought disaster to Rwanda and Haiti, even as

China and Australia

are trying to cope in innovative ways. Despite our own society’s apparently

inexhaustible wealth and unrivaled political power, ominous warning signs have

begun to emerge even in ecologically robust areas like Montana.

Brilliant,

illuminating, and immensely absorbing, Collapse is destined to take its place as

one of the essential books of our time, raising the urgent question: How can our

world best avoid committing ecological suicide?

By: Jared Diamond
Imprint: Penguin US
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 214mm, Width: 138mm, Spine: 32mm
Weight: 510g
ISBN: 9780143117001
ISBN 10: 0143117009
Pages: 589
Publication Date: 01 April 2011
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Reviews for Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed: Revised Edition

Mr. Diamond...is a lucid writer with an ability to make arcane scientific concepts readiily accesible to the lay reader, and his case studies of failed cultures are never less than compelling. --The New York Times...Collapse is a magisterial effort packed with insight and written with clarity and enthusiasm. --Businessweek 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. --Gregg Easterbrook, The New York Times Book Review