What do You think about Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail Or Succeed (2005)?
I considered giving this book 4 instead of 5 stars simply because it can be over-dense in its detail and the style can be rather dry - but then I figured that says more about my stamina and laziness than about the quality of the book, so the book gets 5 and I get a 4 for effort. We're all winners.So despite the headline-grabbing title, the author Jared Diamond - a cross between an Amish garden gnome and avuncular Glastonbury festival supremo if you go by his picture - tries its darndest to avoid sensationalism, and the author opts instead for what is sorely needed in the environmental debate: sober, empirical analysis. But don't let that put you off - once you put your brain into the right gear this book can be completely consuming and fascinating, and the message and lessons it gives are electrifying.Diamond examines in turn a number of societies, ancient and modern, successful or unsuccessful, and forensically examines what were the factors in their collapse or survival before turning to our modern, global society to ask what lessons we can apply from those past cases to the predicament we face today. We learn about the Easter Islanders (about whom one of Diamond's pupils asked: "What was going through the mind of the man who chopped down the last tree on the island?"), the Anasazi, the Maya, the Greenland Norse and Greenland Inuit, modern day Australia and Montana, shogun-ruled Japan and others.He identifies common environmental problems which collapsed societies have tended to share (deforestation and soil erosion as well as resource depletion cropping up again and again), as well as cultural factors such as systems of government and contact with other societies. He cites some incredible studies such as the examination of ancient middens, of crystallised rodents' piss and of pond sediments to show how we can unravel the mysteries of some of these collapses by using the study of, for example, pollen in sediment or animal bones in middens to paint a vivid picture of climates, deforestation and diets at precise times in these societies' stories. It was this quite academic precision that gave me a quiet thrill and which gives this book its calm authority.Diamond ends by looking at our modern global society and assessing its chances of overcoming the sheer number, breadth, scale and interconnectedness of the ecological problems facing us, and although he insists he is an optimist - and argues that our globalised society gives us advantages in finding solutions as well as giving us zero escape routes if we fail - by the time you finish reading, you feel that as a planet we've got a sheer cliff face to climb, and his optimism sounds a little disingenuous. But educating yourself to understand these issues is a necessary step to doing your bit, and this book will certainly arm you with the sobering facts. If only the debate were always conducted in these civilised (in the best sense of the word) terms.
—Gaff
In Collapse, Jared Diamond draws our attention to the following problems, which have "plagued" humanity throughout history.1. Deforestation and loss of habitat2. Overhunting3. Overfishing4. Soil degradation5. Water management problems6. Population growth7. Increased per capita impact of people8. Impact of non-native speciesAnd now we face four more:9. Human-caused climate change10. The build up toxic waste11. We're approaching the limits of the Earth's photosynthetic capacity12. Energy shortagesThere are societies that failed to resolve these problems and they collapsed because of it. Perhaps the best example of this is Diamond's discussion of the isolated Polynesians on Easter Island. They used all of their trees, which led to soil erosion, which led to food shortages, which led to cannibalism. We now live in a "globalized world," but perhaps we should say that we're finally realizing that we live on an island. It seems that we have yet to realize the demands we make on our island.(Is this a bad time to point out that NASA, which apparently costs less per year than the American military spends per year on air conditioning, retired its fleet this week?)I wish that I could just knock off one or two of those problems from Diamond's list, but I can't. Many of them are linked, so if we fail to respond to one, we fail to respond to several. At other times, we lean too hard on solving one problem and end up causing new problems. For example, many forests (Diamond refers to Montana, but I've read about this dynamic elsewhere) have been developed as cottage areas, so we do not allow fires or any logging. The buildup of old forest and underbrush makes for a tinderbox, which means that when fires do happen, they are massive. And putting them out is not free, either.How do you gather political will to deal with a problem like this? We could try to log sustainably and selectively, but what company can we trust to log in such a way? Sure, many companies will claim to do good, but we've been tricked before, haven't we? So the environmentalists are out. The cottage owners are certainly not going to recommend logging or allowing fires of any sort to threaten their investments. So basically, every stakeholder is stuck.Diamond quickly moves on from Montana and illustrates the role of ecological problems in societal collapses by comparing past societies that collapsed (as opposed to declined) throughout history. In each case, he methodically outlines how these societies destroyed themselves by failing to resolve ecological problems. It's pretty convincing, if you need convincing.I think there is a common concern for the environment. I'm not even 30, so perhaps I can't speak with a great deal of authority on the subject, but it feels to me that North America is obsessed with post-apocalyptic settings right now. If there is a "spirit" of a society that is translated in its literature, then I think it's safe to say that the bearded guy holding a "the end is nigh" sign is finally getting the mainstream audience he dreamed of.It seems to me the real problem is that it is very difficult to minimize our impact on the environment. We can call upon America to lead the way, but they can't even manage their debt. In fact, the societies that Diamond relies on to illustrate that it is possible to limit deforestation, tend to be autocratic (though so were the societies that Diamond relies on to illustrate failure). Now, some NGOs have set up certification procedures that identify wood that was harvested sustainably, but other corporate commissions have set up their own certification bodies to confuse consumers.Nevertheless, Diamond outlines reasons to be cautiously optimistic before concluding. Unfortunately, this may have been the least convincing part of Collapse.So I'll close with the cynical words of Danny Archer from Blood Diamond."When was the last time the world wasn't ending?"Usually, I find these words very soothing. Now I feel like the world always has been ending. It's just that until recently, humanity could only end one specific part of it at any given time. Now we're a global society.
—Ryan
Fascinating work by the same author who won a Pulitzer prize for Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. This exhaustive study in Malthusian economics as applied to several societies in history that have failed, such as the Easter Islanders and Greenland Norse, details the thematic traits common to each example. Most notably is how deforestation and imprudent population control applies to modern societies in trouble as well. I find myself thinking about this work frequently, his ideas resonate with our times, mirroring as they do, and as he shows us, with failed societies of the past. Haunting and thought provoking and a damn fine book.
—Lyn
