Collapse

By: Jared Diamond

Narrated by: Christopher Murney

In Jared Diamond’s follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize–winning Guns, Germs and Steel, the author explores how climate change, the population explosion, and political discord create the conditions for the collapse of civilization.

Environmental damage, climate change, globalization, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were all factors in the demise of societies around the world, but some found solutions and persisted. As in Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond traces the fundamental pattern of catastrophe, and weaves an all-encompassing global thesis through a series of fascinating historical-cultural narratives. Collapse moves from the Polynesian cultures on Easter Island to the flourishing American civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya and finally to the doomed Viking colony on Greenland. 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.

Brilliant, illuminating, and immensely absorbing, Collapse 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 committing ecological suicide?©2004 Jared Diamond; (P)2004 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"Mr. Diamond...is a lucid writer with an ability to make arcane scientific concepts readiily accesible to the lay reader, and his case studies of failed cultures are never less than compelling." The New York Times

"...Collapse is a magisterial effort packed with insight and written with clarity and enthusiasm." Businessweek

"Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse represent one of the most significant projects embarked upon by any intellectual of our generation. They are magnificent books: extraordinary in erudition and originality, compelling in their ability to relate the digitized pandemonium of the present to the hushed agrarian sunrises of the far past. I read both thinking what literature might be like if every author knew so much, wrote so clearly and formed arguments with such care." Gregg Easterbrook, The New York Times Book Review

great research and examples

I enjoyed the example of Hispanola, the deforested side of Haiti v. the lush side of Dominican Republic. Sharp and precise example of Rwanda, coworkers killing each other, students/teachers also participated in genocide. Well told and balanced.

colossal

I found this book immensely informative. I noticed that THE ECONOMIST (Jan 15, 2005) reviewed this book, and found its message "gripping", and that "Mr. Diamond is the only man that could have written it". I await with baited breath Audible's addition of "Guns, Germs, and Steel" (Mr. Diamond's account of the rise of various civilizations)

Great book!

While this book is not quite as good as his last book, "Guns, Germs, and steel", it is still a brillent book. It is amazing how he pulls the research together in such a comprehensive way, and still making it such a joy to read or listen to. I recommend this book whole heartedly.

Provocative but...

Worth 3.75 stars, Collapse is Diamond's case for taking responsibility for consequences of actions at a societal level. It is well-researched, and well narrated, but it does come across as self-referential, i.e., cases identified to reinforce the theses. I am left with a nagging sense that there may be an opposing view that is not recognized or heard in the book. Perhaps, because it is an abridged version, the full book would be more satisfying.

Pleasantly Surprised

I greatly feared starting this book. Quite frankly, I was worried I would feel thoroughly hopeless after the reading. I was pleasantly surprised by the author's engaging overview of past cultures, their mistakes and the outcomes.
I appreciated the manner in which the author built our understanding of current peril while still offering hope for change. It is a galvanizing read.