Collapse: How Societies Chose to Fail or Succeed

A debate between two camps continues to rage. One side thinks that the modern world continues to careen toward a non-sustainable future and impending doom. The other group thinks that "environmentalists" exaggerate their claims about a coming ecological crash. As usual the sides remain somewhat unproductively polarized with neither giving an inch to the other. This book's title exposes where Jared Diamond's sympathies stand,... Read Full Review

_Collapse_ by Jared Diamond is an absolutely epic look at why some past societies that faced grave environmental problems failed, why others succeeded, and what this "rich database" of past civilizations tells us about the current and future problems we face in our world. By the word collapse, Diamond meant a drastic decrease in population as well as in the economy and political and social complexity of a society, as opposed... Read Full Review

This is a fascinating examination of how ecologically speaking, we may be doomed to repeat history's mistakes due to the lack of their immediacy to our consciousness. The prospect of self-preservation on a societal level can be a daunting one, but it is a profound question author Jared Diamond handles with skill and panache in his sweeping book. He primarily covers four extinct civilizations, showing how human-led environmental... Read Full Review