Ultimately, disappointing
|
I first heard about this book by hearing someone say that it was "genius." It's certainly not, but it's worth a read anyway... at least the first 3/4.
I'm not overly interested in environmentalism -- I read this book primarily for the narratives and analyses of the ancient and recent societies that collapsed. The book is, after all, called "Collapse."
Collapse starts off very strongly. It gives a nice description of what constitutes a collapse and explains how history should be studied like a science. His intro chapter on Montana basically sets the tone for the next 13 chapters of the book, which are interesting for the most part, although sometimes redundant. His analyses of past and modern societies are insightful and exhibit a comprehensive knowledge of history... too bad he didn't stop there.
The last section is called "Pracical Lessons." After reading the previous chapters, I was pretty pumped for this part, as Diamond is obviously a vary smart man (not that his biases don't show at times). Unfortunately, without the use of a storyline to present his thoughts, as in the previous chapters, his writing derails and becomes extremely dry... almost unbearable to read. I reduced myself to generous skimming because he really presents nothing new; the average reader should be smart enought to extend what he was saying in the historical examples to modern society.
Thus, I'm not sure that I would reccommend this book. If it's history you're looking for, there are better books, and I'm sure the same goes if you're looking for a book on environmental issues. The book really doesn't work well as a hybrid; the last section doesn't flow with the first three. I would suggest reading only a few chapters... say, the ones on Easter Island, the Anasazi, Rwanda, and Australia. These are very good, but the rest is really redundancy.
My suggestion: get this from the library, read 4 or 5 chapters, and don't waste your time and money on the rest.
|
|
Measured Warning
|
It was a pleasant surprise that Collapse was not as depressing as I thought it could be. Despite its gloomy subject matter, Jared Diamond's sober and lucid analysis is more reassuring than frightening, providing a measured warning to readers.
Diamond uses the fascinating historical accounts of past societies (Easter Island, the Maya etc) to illustrate the common causes of societal failure, and repeatedly emphasizes the relevance of their demise to our current problems. (Perhaps a little too repeatedly as it is hard to miss the point.)
Discussions about modern societies are even more interesting. I did not know that population pressure was behind the genocide in Rwanda. I did not know that seemingly harmless rabbits are devastating Australian soils either (which is sad as it is not really rabbits' fault).
Diamond is also fair in recognizing the effort of some big businesses, along with government initiatives, in order to minimize environmental damage and develop sustainable resource management. If more companies follow suit and more governments consider environmental issues a priority, it would make a substantial difference. Surely this is not a new argument. However there is nothing wrong to remind us that, as consumers and society members, we can influence their decisions, if we choose to.
This book may be too simplified for specialists but is a good starting point for the public audience like myself. It definitely helped me understand inter-relations between environmental issues and social, economic, political conditions.
|
|
|
Interesting BUT Repetitive
|
The book gives you a good explanation and goes into several factors why a society could and does collapse. It explains these factors by analyzing past cultures which have already collapse or were on the verge of collapse.
The only down fall (some may not see it that way) is that after several chapters, you become very familiar with the factor which contribute to a collapse of a society, that the rest of the book becomes more of a historical book (many of the cultures he looked at, I had already studied and had background knowledge on them which made the end of the book less interesting for me. Known the less, this is a fantastic book which is worth reading.
Kevin H
|
|
Fantastic Tours of Changing Environments, but leaves out the Middle East
|
"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 which suffered environmental collapse in the past like Yucatan or Greenland, then 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.
|
|
|
My 100-word book review
|
|
Collapse is a thoroughly researched and fascinating book offering reasons why civilisations have failed in the past. The Mayans, Easter Islanders and Greenland Norse each encountered complex problems that eventually became catastrophic. Jared Diamond offers no simplistic explanation but describes a number of causes, such as climate change, geography and psychological flaws, which can reinforce one another and lead to disaster. The author does not take an overly pro-environmental stance, recognising that industry has a vital role to play in protecting our world. He provides a salutary lesson from history that current and future generations would do well to heed.
|
|
|
