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# Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed: Revised Edition

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Review: The View From Olympus Is Not Always Inspiring - The professed intent of this work is the establishment of an algorithm of survival, so to speak, based upon a close look at societies that didn't survive, for the most part. Quite quickly it becomes clear to the reader that cultural/ecological collapse is real but not so readily managed. As the author himself admits, one wonders what was on the mind of the man who chopped down the last tree on Easter Island. And yet this is an intriguing book, well researched, restrained for the most part, taking us to places and times we rarely think about to grasp the reality of how fragile our way of life really is. Along the way is the troubling discovery that yesterday, like today, man is his own worst enemy. Diamond's anthology does make a case that the entire planet is in trouble. But this author is meticulous and respectful: he succeeds in giving the reader a feel for local communities and regions, dissecting aspects of economy, geography, religion and human behaviors where people had real choices and made less inspired ones. One sees that similar processes are at work today in disparate parts of world, from Montana to Australia. I for one will forever feel guilty about broiling orange roughy on the Fridays of Lent. To give the reader some sense of his method, Diamond opens his works with a lengthy essay on the present day State of Montana. Big Sky Country is in trouble, though some folks in the Mountain Time Zone may bristle at his take on a state which has a reputation, at least, for self-sufficiency. The author calmly torpedoes a number of Montana's beliefs and practices, observing that were it a free standing nation, it would fall into Third World status. Diamond outlines a Montanan natural algorithm: its cool, dry, somewhat windy climate on the leeward side of mountains led settlers to seek an economy below the surface, where the state's only true industrial aged wealth resided--in mining. Diamond examines the relentless poisoning of Montana's land and water as a variety of natural toxins, set free in the mining process, began a century of steady leeching. The human expression of the survival algorithm comes into play in Montana quite vividly. For a number of reasons many citizens of the state resist government efforts to organize anything like zoning or greening. Centralization is political poison, a curious state of affairs for a state that gets a 150% return on its federal tax dollar. But Montana is hardly alone in its quirky thinking. Vikings on the verge of starvation in thirteenth century Greenland make considerable donations to the papal Crusade tax. Why people make the decisions they do is the one question Diamond never quite nails down with the precision of his other observations. Perhaps the best overriding definition of our global problems can be defined as "contemporary self interest." Just as Santayana warned of the dangers of not looking back, the author raises our awareness of looking toward the future. Although he traces nearly a dozen past and present civilizations, I found the lengthy tale of the Norsemen particularly compelling. The Vikings, having settled modern Scandinavia, began a near millennium of westward settlement. Iceland, with its climate and vegetation, was just marginal enough for permanent survival. The Viking settlement of Vinland, on the North American continent, ultimately broke down because warlike mannerisms were ultimately quashed by indigenous Indians. Greenland, however, was a slow and painful death of nearly five hundred years, where climate, technology, topography and hardheadedness eventually doomed a lengthy effort to colonize the great island. Diamond observed that the true tragedy of Greenland was the Norsemen's failure to learn from a surviving neighbor, the Inuit, who had mastered the boating, weaponry, and dietary limitations of the territory. This is not "Inconvenient Truth" tree hugging polemic. Rather than trumpet one big problem, the author dissects many overlooked smaller ones of the past, and sets them alongside similar potential strategies of the present day, in some cases species by species. In recent years I have developed a taste for Orange Roughy, a fish mass marketed in US shopping clubs. Diamond observes that most of the world's roughy is a product of the waters off Australia and New Zealand. Recent studies have found that this species does not begin to reproduce until the age of 40, and that most captured roughy is nearly a century old. At these numbers its reproduction will reduce exponentially [406]. Thus I am a kinsman of the last logger on Easter Island, grilling the last roughy on the patio. Roughy may seem like small potatoes, pardon the dietary allusion, but it is a good paradigm for more vital matters of fresh water, soil, food production, toxic waste, energy, and population. [Curiously, "global warming" is not a dominating theme of current day life problems, a sobering fact in itself.] Diamond discusses several international industry practices, particularly in matters of logging rain forests and drilling for oil. He devotes a chapter to "first world yuppies" who would dismiss his concerns as alarmist, again with a disarming humor--nobody has ever criticized a town for maintaining a fire house, he observes, if the town has but a few fires a year. [510] I do not know if Diamond is conversant with the writings of St. Augustine, the notably pessimistic Christian philosopher of the fifth century. At the risk of extremely generous paraphrasing, Augustine contended then that mankind is, religion notwithstanding, inherently flawed and selfish. Diamond does not say this directly, but his body of work does not make a liar of Augustine. Diamond's concern is not just that men are selfish and narrow sighted, but that there are a lot more men today, with more technology to do more questionable things. Perhaps prayer need be added to the algorithm of survival.
Review: Reads likes a college textbook - but worth reading anyway - I grew up playing in the ruins of the ancient Anasazi. Like the giant, carved stone heads on Easter Island, Anasazi ruins stand in the Arizona desert like mysterious totems of a civilization that simply disappeared from the face of the Earth. As a child, the disappearance of the Anasazi was a mystery that fueled my imagination. How could an entire population of people simply vanish? Growing up in the Space Age, an era when every American looked up into the night sky and dreamed of walking on the moon, the idea of space travel and the existence of UFO’s enthralled me. I devoured Erich von Däniken’s book, "Chariots of the Gods?—Unsolved Mysteries of the Past," studying the photos that seemed to prove ancient astronauts had visited the Earth. So, it wasn’t difficult for me to theorize that the Anasazi were ancient astronauts who had, for unknown reasons, simply climbed aboard a spacecraft and left, leaving behind their ruined dwellings and a centuries-old mystery. Long after I had grown up and moved away from Arizona, I forgot about the baffling ancient Anasazi. I never quite stopped believing, though, that ancient astronauts could account for their disappearance. However, their actual fate, whatever it was, remained a mystery. Then I read Jared Diamond’s book "Collapse – How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed." In scientific detail, Jared Diamond explains exactly what happened to the ancient Anasazi. He also explains the fates of other past societies that have disappeared, leaving behind their stone temples, monuments, and buildings as measurements of their previously massive populations and ingenuity. In an expansive volume of 560 pages, Diamond relates the purpose and meaning of the carved stone heads on Easter Island as well as how and why the societies of the Easter Islanders, Pitcairn and Henderson Pacific Islanders, Mayans, and Norse Greenland Vikings all eventually collapsed and disappeared. Without revealing the ending, let me just say that Diamond proves that UFO’s and ancient astronauts had nothing whatsoever to do with the disappearance of any of these civilizations, though, to keep you interested, cannibalism does. Importantly, as fascinating as they are, the fates of all those ancient peoples are not the focus of Diamond’s book. Instead, Diamond is interested in answering the question: Could what happened to them happen to us? The chilling answer is yes. Using detailed and explicit examples, he shows us how current, modern societies—we—are following the same path to total demise. "Collapse," however, is not just a doomsday book about what we as a society are doing wrong that, if not corrected, will lead to our destruction. It is also a how-to manual, offering an array of possible solutions and giving positive examples of societies that have effectively applied the solutions to the problems we are facing. It is also a wake-up call, a call to arms, an alarm that everyone should hear and heed. I think "Collapse" is an important book, one that I have added to my “must-read” list, that is, books I recommend others read. If you decide to read it, and I hope that you will, you will discover that it was originally published in 2005. I assure you, though, that the book not only remains relevant today but also, I think, continues to grow in importance as time goes on. You may also find that "Collapse" reads likes a college textbook. The basis for "Collapse" was, in fact, first developed as a college course Diamond taught at Stanford University. As thorough and scientific as it is, Diamond is not short on providing fascinating details that kept me interested and helped me get through the entire volume. By the time I finally finished it, I felt as though I had successfully monitored Diamond’s course, and I had learned a lot.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #35,548 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #9 in General Anthropology #49 in Cultural Anthropology (Books) #60 in History of Civilization & Culture |
| Book 2 of 3  | Civilizations Rise and Fall |
| Customer Reviews | 4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars (3,686) |
| Dimensions  | 1.3 x 8.42 x 5.46 inches |
| Edition  | Revised |
| ISBN-10  | 0143117009 |
| ISBN-13  | 978-0143117001 |
| Item Weight  | 1.12 pounds |
| Language  | English |
| Print length  | 608 pages |
| Publication date  | January 4, 2011 |
| Publisher  | Penguin Books |
| Reading age  | 18 years and up |

## Images

![Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed: Revised Edition - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61LA4aWiGzL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The View From Olympus Is Not Always Inspiring
*by T***S on February 24, 2008*

The professed intent of this work is the establishment of an algorithm of survival, so to speak, based upon a close look at societies that didn't survive, for the most part. Quite quickly it becomes clear to the reader that cultural/ecological collapse is real but not so readily managed. As the author himself admits, one wonders what was on the mind of the man who chopped down the last tree on Easter Island. And yet this is an intriguing book, well researched, restrained for the most part, taking us to places and times we rarely think about to grasp the reality of how fragile our way of life really is. Along the way is the troubling discovery that yesterday, like today, man is his own worst enemy. Diamond's anthology does make a case that the entire planet is in trouble. But this author is meticulous and respectful: he succeeds in giving the reader a feel for local communities and regions, dissecting aspects of economy, geography, religion and human behaviors where people had real choices and made less inspired ones. One sees that similar processes are at work today in disparate parts of world, from Montana to Australia. I for one will forever feel guilty about broiling orange roughy on the Fridays of Lent. To give the reader some sense of his method, Diamond opens his works with a lengthy essay on the present day State of Montana. Big Sky Country is in trouble, though some folks in the Mountain Time Zone may bristle at his take on a state which has a reputation, at least, for self-sufficiency. The author calmly torpedoes a number of Montana's beliefs and practices, observing that were it a free standing nation, it would fall into Third World status. Diamond outlines a Montanan natural algorithm: its cool, dry, somewhat windy climate on the leeward side of mountains led settlers to seek an economy below the surface, where the state's only true industrial aged wealth resided--in mining. Diamond examines the relentless poisoning of Montana's land and water as a variety of natural toxins, set free in the mining process, began a century of steady leeching. The human expression of the survival algorithm comes into play in Montana quite vividly. For a number of reasons many citizens of the state resist government efforts to organize anything like zoning or greening. Centralization is political poison, a curious state of affairs for a state that gets a 150% return on its federal tax dollar. But Montana is hardly alone in its quirky thinking. Vikings on the verge of starvation in thirteenth century Greenland make considerable donations to the papal Crusade tax. Why people make the decisions they do is the one question Diamond never quite nails down with the precision of his other observations. Perhaps the best overriding definition of our global problems can be defined as "contemporary self interest." Just as Santayana warned of the dangers of not looking back, the author raises our awareness of looking toward the future. Although he traces nearly a dozen past and present civilizations, I found the lengthy tale of the Norsemen particularly compelling. The Vikings, having settled modern Scandinavia, began a near millennium of westward settlement. Iceland, with its climate and vegetation, was just marginal enough for permanent survival. The Viking settlement of Vinland, on the North American continent, ultimately broke down because warlike mannerisms were ultimately quashed by indigenous Indians. Greenland, however, was a slow and painful death of nearly five hundred years, where climate, technology, topography and hardheadedness eventually doomed a lengthy effort to colonize the great island. Diamond observed that the true tragedy of Greenland was the Norsemen's failure to learn from a surviving neighbor, the Inuit, who had mastered the boating, weaponry, and dietary limitations of the territory. This is not "Inconvenient Truth" tree hugging polemic. Rather than trumpet one big problem, the author dissects many overlooked smaller ones of the past, and sets them alongside similar potential strategies of the present day, in some cases species by species. In recent years I have developed a taste for Orange Roughy, a fish mass marketed in US shopping clubs. Diamond observes that most of the world's roughy is a product of the waters off Australia and New Zealand. Recent studies have found that this species does not begin to reproduce until the age of 40, and that most captured roughy is nearly a century old. At these numbers its reproduction will reduce exponentially [406]. Thus I am a kinsman of the last logger on Easter Island, grilling the last roughy on the patio. Roughy may seem like small potatoes, pardon the dietary allusion, but it is a good paradigm for more vital matters of fresh water, soil, food production, toxic waste, energy, and population. [Curiously, "global warming" is not a dominating theme of current day life problems, a sobering fact in itself.] Diamond discusses several international industry practices, particularly in matters of logging rain forests and drilling for oil. He devotes a chapter to "first world yuppies" who would dismiss his concerns as alarmist, again with a disarming humor--nobody has ever criticized a town for maintaining a fire house, he observes, if the town has but a few fires a year. [510] I do not know if Diamond is conversant with the writings of St. Augustine, the notably pessimistic Christian philosopher of the fifth century. At the risk of extremely generous paraphrasing, Augustine contended then that mankind is, religion notwithstanding, inherently flawed and selfish. Diamond does not say this directly, but his body of work does not make a liar of Augustine. Diamond's concern is not just that men are selfish and narrow sighted, but that there are a lot more men today, with more technology to do more questionable things. Perhaps prayer need be added to the algorithm of survival.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Reads likes a college textbook - but worth reading anyway
*by T***R on June 13, 2020*

I grew up playing in the ruins of the ancient Anasazi. Like the giant, carved stone heads on Easter Island, Anasazi ruins stand in the Arizona desert like mysterious totems of a civilization that simply disappeared from the face of the Earth. As a child, the disappearance of the Anasazi was a mystery that fueled my imagination. How could an entire population of people simply vanish? Growing up in the Space Age, an era when every American looked up into the night sky and dreamed of walking on the moon, the idea of space travel and the existence of UFO’s enthralled me. I devoured Erich von Däniken’s book, "Chariots of the Gods?—Unsolved Mysteries of the Past," studying the photos that seemed to prove ancient astronauts had visited the Earth. So, it wasn’t difficult for me to theorize that the Anasazi were ancient astronauts who had, for unknown reasons, simply climbed aboard a spacecraft and left, leaving behind their ruined dwellings and a centuries-old mystery. Long after I had grown up and moved away from Arizona, I forgot about the baffling ancient Anasazi. I never quite stopped believing, though, that ancient astronauts could account for their disappearance. However, their actual fate, whatever it was, remained a mystery. Then I read Jared Diamond’s book "Collapse – How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed." In scientific detail, Jared Diamond explains exactly what happened to the ancient Anasazi. He also explains the fates of other past societies that have disappeared, leaving behind their stone temples, monuments, and buildings as measurements of their previously massive populations and ingenuity. In an expansive volume of 560 pages, Diamond relates the purpose and meaning of the carved stone heads on Easter Island as well as how and why the societies of the Easter Islanders, Pitcairn and Henderson Pacific Islanders, Mayans, and Norse Greenland Vikings all eventually collapsed and disappeared. Without revealing the ending, let me just say that Diamond proves that UFO’s and ancient astronauts had nothing whatsoever to do with the disappearance of any of these civilizations, though, to keep you interested, cannibalism does. Importantly, as fascinating as they are, the fates of all those ancient peoples are not the focus of Diamond’s book. Instead, Diamond is interested in answering the question: Could what happened to them happen to us? The chilling answer is yes. Using detailed and explicit examples, he shows us how current, modern societies—we—are following the same path to total demise. "Collapse," however, is not just a doomsday book about what we as a society are doing wrong that, if not corrected, will lead to our destruction. It is also a how-to manual, offering an array of possible solutions and giving positive examples of societies that have effectively applied the solutions to the problems we are facing. It is also a wake-up call, a call to arms, an alarm that everyone should hear and heed. I think "Collapse" is an important book, one that I have added to my “must-read” list, that is, books I recommend others read. If you decide to read it, and I hope that you will, you will discover that it was originally published in 2005. I assure you, though, that the book not only remains relevant today but also, I think, continues to grow in importance as time goes on. You may also find that "Collapse" reads likes a college textbook. The basis for "Collapse" was, in fact, first developed as a college course Diamond taught at Stanford University. As thorough and scientific as it is, Diamond is not short on providing fascinating details that kept me interested and helped me get through the entire volume. By the time I finally finished it, I felt as though I had successfully monitored Diamond’s course, and I had learned a lot.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review
*by P***E on August 3, 2021*

On ne peut pas parler d'Écologie sans avoir d'ABORD lu ce livre du début à la fin. Panorama des conséquences de mettre la satisfaction des pressions immédiates au péril de l'avenir, coupant des arbres, élevant des chèvres et ayant trop d'enfants. Les technologies nous permettent certaines croissances, mais il faut bien en comprendre les limites: par exemple l'irrigation entraîne la salaison des terres et inéluctablement à leur infertilité. Le Montana était LA belle montagne, maintenant c'est une montagne de problèmes. L'Île de Pâques était fertile, maintenant c'est fini. Le Moyen-Orient était le Croissant Fertile, maintenant c'est fini. L'Afrique du Nord était le grenier à blé de Rome, maintenant c'est fini. Les chèvres ont tout détruit. Le Kenya, le Soudan, bientôt l'Égypte... etc. En fait presque partout. La Chine a compris, replante des millions d'arbres pour contenir et espérer repousser le désert de Gobi. Il y a un timide effort au sud du Sahara et des bruits sur l'Amazonie. En refermant ce livre, on court vers le jardin pour y planter un arbre, et on ne rie plus des Végétariens. Vive la viande synthétique. Relire le roman "Make Room! Make Room!" (Harry Harrison, 1966), revoir le film "Solyent Green" (1973, en France: Soleil Vert), scénario prévu pour... 2022, juste l'année prochaine.

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