Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

by Diamond, Jared (Author)

• ISBN13: 9780143036555
• ISBN10: 0143036556
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-12-27
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)

Summary

In his runaway bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond brilliantly examined the circumstances that allowed Western civilizations to dominate much of the world. Now he probes the other side of the equation: What caused some of the great civilizations of the past to fall into ruin, and what can we learn from their fates? Using a vast historical and geographical perspective ranging from Easter Island and the Maya to Viking Greenland and modern Montana, Diamond traces a fundamental pattern of environmental catastrophe—one whose warning signs can be seen in our modern world and that we ignore at our peril. Blending the most recent scientific advances into a narrative that is impossible to put down, Collapseexposes the deepest mysteries of the past even as it offers hope for the future. Diamond’s most influential gift may be his ability to write about geopolitical and environmental systems in ways that don’t just educate and provoke, but entertain.” —The Seattle Times Extremely persuasive . . . replete with fascinating stories, a treasure trove of historical anecdotes [and] haunting statistics.” —The Boston Globe Extraordinary in erudition and originality, compelling in [its] ability to relate the digitized pandemonium of the present to the hushed agrarian sunrises of the far past.” —The New York Times Book Review

Author Biography

Jared Diamond is a professor of geography at the University of California, Los Angeles. The recipient of numerous awards, he has published more than two hundred articles in such prestigious magazines as Discover and Nature.

Table of Contents

List of Maps	xiii
Prologue: A Tale of Two Farms	1	(24)
Two farms
Collapses, past and present
Vanished Edens?
A five-point framework
Businesses and the environment
The comparative method
Plan of the book
Part One: MODERN MONTANA	25	(52)
Chapter 1: Under Montana's Big Sky	27	(50)
Stan Falkow's story
Montana and me
Why begin with Montana?
Montana's economic history
Mining
Forests
Soil
Water
Native and non-native species
Differing visions
Attitudes towards regulation
Rick Laible's story
Chip Pigman's story
Tim Huls's story
John Cook's story
Montana, model of the world
Part Two: PAST SOCIETIES	77	(232)
Chapter 2: Twilight at Easter	79	(41)
The quarry's mysteries
Easter's geography and history
People and food
Chiefs, clans, and commoners
Platforms and statues
Carving, transporting, erecting
The vanished forest
Consequences for society
Europeans and explanations
Why was Easter fragile?
Easter as metaphor
Chapter 3: The Last People Alive: Pitcairn and Henderson Islands	120	(16)
Pitcairn before the Bounty
Three dissimilar islands
Trade
The movie's ending
Chapter 4: The Ancient Ones: The Anasazi and Their Neighbors	136	(21)
Desert farmers
Tree rings
Agricultural strategies
Chaco's problems and packrats
Regional integration
Chaco's decline and end
Chaco's message
Chapter 5: The Maya Collapses	157	(21)
Mysteries of lost cities
The Maya environment
Maya agriculture
Maya history
Copán
Complexities of collapses
Wars and droughts
Collapse in the southern lowlands
The Maya message
Chapter 6: The Viking Prelude and Fugues	178	(33)
Experiments in the Atlantic
The Viking explosion
Autocatalysis
Viking agriculture
Iron
Viking chiefs
Viking religion
Orkneys, Shetlands, Faeroes
Iceland's environment
Iceland's history
Iceland in context
Vinland
Chapter 7: Norse Greenland's Flowering	211	(37)
Europe's outpost
Greenland's climate today
Climate in the past
Native plants and animals
Norse settlement
Farming
Hunting and fishing
An integrated economy
Society
Trade with Europe
Self-image
Chapter 8: Norse Greenland's End	248	(29)
Introduction to the end
Deforestation
Soil and turf damage
The Inuit's predecessors
Inuit subsistence
Inuit/Norse relations
The end
Ultimate causes of the end
Chapter 9: Opposite Paths to Success	277	(32)
Bottom up, top down
New Guinea highlands
Tikopia
Tokugawa problems
Tokugawa solutions
Why Japan succeeded
Other successes
Part Three: MODERN SOCIETIES	309	(108)
Chapter 10: Malthus in Africa: Rwanda's Genocide	311	(18)
A dilemma
Events in Rwanda
More than ethnic hatred
Buildup in Kanama
Explosion in Kanama
Why it happened
Chapter 11: One Island, Two Peoples, Two Histories: The Dominican Republic and Haiti	329	(29)
Differences
Histories
Causes of divergence
Dominican environmental impacts
Balaguer
The Dominican environment today
The future
Chapter 12: China, Lurching Giant	358	(20)
China's significance
Background
Air, water, soil
Habitat, species, megaprojects
Consequences
Connections
The future
Chapter 13: "Mining" Australia	378	(39)
Australia's significance
Soils
Water
Distance
Early history
Imported values
Trade and immigration
Land degradation
Other environmental problems
Signs of hope and change
Part Four: PRACTICAL LESSONS	417	(109)
Chapter 14: Why Do Some Societies Make Disastrous Decisions?	419	(22)
Road map for success
Failure to anticipate
Failure to perceive
Rational bad behavior
Disastrous values
Other irrational failures
Unsuccessful solutions
Signs of hope
Chapter 15: Big Businesses and the Environment: Different Conditions, Different Outcomes	441	(45)
Resource extraction
Two oil fields
Oil company motives
Hardrock mining operations
Mining company motives
Differences among mining companies
The logging industry
Forest Stewardship Council
The seafood industry
Businesses and the public
Chapter 16: The World as a Polder: What Does It All Mean to Us Today?	486	(40)
Introduction	7	(519)
The most serious problems
If we don't solve them
Life in Los Angeles
One-liner objections
The past and the present
Reasons for hope
Acknowledgments	526	(3)
Further Readings	529	(32)
Index	561	(15)
Illustration Credits	576