Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
When I saw the title of the book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed it immediately jumped out at me. I’m an archaeologist currently obsessed with combing through the lessons of the past in an effort to find the stories that can save us from a modern environmental disaster. That’s why I pulled the book off the shelf, and gave it a prominent place on my desk. Diamond blew my mind with his amazing presentation of these compelling tales of environmental tragedy. I read straight through that first lunch hour, and well into the afternoon…
Jared Diamond is a skilled writer, a deep thinker, and an eloquent communicator. Throughout the book there are riveting examples of societies whose environmental impact upon the land around them ultimately doomed the people who depended on that land for sustenance.
The stories of errant water use, deforestation, overhunting, and failed irrigation are presented in colorful and vivid detail, leaving the reader captivated by the people of the past. He provides us with an accessible roadmap, a clear account of the things that have gone wrong in our collective past, and a chance to choose a different future.
Collapse also leaves the reader with a message of hope, something we’re all going to need if we are going to find a sustainable future. I’ll leave you with that message, in Diamond’s own words:
Our television documentaries and books show is in graphic detail why the Easter Islanders, Classic Maya, and other past societies collapsed. Thus we have the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of distant peoples and past peoples. That’s an opportunity that no past society enjoyed to such a degree. My hope in writing this book is that enough people will choose to profit from that opportunity to make a difference.
