Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail Or Succeed

Diamond, Jared

ISBN 10: 0670033375 / ISBN 13: 9780670033379

Published by Penguin Group - Viking Studio Books, New York, New York, U.S.A., 2005

About this Item

575 Pages Indexed. Light grey boards with black quarter-spine. Top front corner is lightly barely noticeable bumped. No other defects noted to this otherwise As New book with flawless interior text pages. What is more haunting than the specter of a civilization's collapse such as the abandoned temples of Angkor Wat, the Maya cities overgrown by jungle, or the somber vigil of Easter Island's statues? Who hasn't looked at such ruins and wondered, could the same thing happen to us? In his Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel, the author examined how and why Western civilizations developed the technologies and immunities that allowed them to dominate much of the world. Diamond probes the other side of the equation: What caused some of the great civilizations of the past to collapse into ruin, and what can we learn from their fates? As in Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond weaves an all-encompassing global thesis through a series of fascinating historical-cultural narratives. Moving from the prehistoric Polynesian culture on Easter Island to the formerly flourishing native American civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya, the doomed medieval Viking colony on Greenland, and finally to the modern world, Diamond traces a fundamental pattern of catastrophe, spelling out what happens when we squander our resources, when we ignore the signals our environment gives us, and when we reproduce too fast or cut down too many trees. Environmental damage, climate change, rapid population growth, unstable trade partners, and pressure from enemies were all factors in the demise of the doomed societies, but other societies found solution to those same problems and persisted. What makes one environment more fragile than another? Why do some societies, but not others, blunder into self-destruction? Similar problems face us today and have already brought disaster to Rwanda and Haiti, even as China and Australia are trying to cope in innovative ways. Despite our own society's apparently inexhaustible wealth and unrivaled political power, ominous warning signs have begun to emerge even in ecologically robust areas like Montana. What economic, social and political choices can we still make so that we don't meet the same ends? Huge in scope, clear and passionate in style, this book is destined to take its place as one of the essential books of our time, raising the urgent question: How can our world best avoid destroying itself? Contents in Four Parts: Modern Montana, Past Societies, Modern Societies, and Practical Lessons.

Seller Inventory # 14329

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail Or Succeed
• Publisher: Penguin Group - Viking Studio Books, New York, New York, U.S.A.
• Publication Date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0670033375
• ISBN 13: 9780670033379
• Binding: Hard Back
• Illustrator: Ward, Jeffrey - Maps
• Edition: First Printing
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

A study of the downfall of some of history's greatest civilizations, written by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel, includes coverage of such cultures as the Anasazi, the Maya, and the Viking colony on Greenland, tracing patterns of environmental damage, climate change, poor political choices, and other factors that were pivotal to their demise. 250,000 first printing.

About the Author

Jared Diamond is a professor of geography at the University of California, Los Angeles. He began his scientific career in physiology and expanded into evolutionary biology and biogeography. Among his many awards are the National Medal of Science, the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, Japan’s Cosmos Prize, a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and the Lewis Thomas Prize honoring the Scientist as Poet, presented by The Rockefeller University. His previous books include Why Is Sex Fun?, The Third Chimpanzee, Collapse, The World Until Yesterday, and Guns, Germs, and Steel, winner of the Pulitzer Prize.