The past societies include Easter Island, Pitcairn, Anasazi (American South-West civilisation connected to Chaco Canyon), Yucatan Maya and the Norse in Greenland. The specific cases he discusses are, nevertheless, fantastically researched and very well described (even if he does go on a bit in places). It goes more or less like this: they got rid of the trees and they overexploited the soil so eventually they couldn't grow enough food (sometimes a climate change or a hostile neighbour is thrown in) so they started to starve and either died out, killed each other, had to leave or a combination of all three. He concentrates on what is called 'ecocide', or ecological suicide, where a society fails because of at least partially self-inflicted ecological disaster, essentially a catastrophe of unsustainability.ĭespite criticising simplifications in approaches of others, the reasons Diamond provides for the collapses of virtually all of the societies he writes about seem to my non-specialist mind extremely alike. It's a pity, because the subject and even the angle Diamond took on it had undoubtedly a lot of potential.įor those interested in broader reasons for societal collapse, Diamond makes his caveats very quickly - 'Collapse' proposes to investigate only a certain type of failure to thrive.

'Collapse' seems to be a clear attempt to discount the success of the previous book and was - at least to me - a rather disappointing effort. Its approach and clarity seemed unique - at least in the field of popular science.

It was a big doorstopper of a book, but its size was more than justified by the wealth of information it provided. I liked the Diamond's former bestseller 'Guns, Germs and Steel' a lot. From Easter Island to Maya to the Vikings in Greenland and from Australia to Rwanda Diamonds research and analysis are immaculate but his over-long personal musings and lack of suggestions for higher-impact political solutions that would have a chance of changing the status quo make for an interesting but rather disappointing offering.

Summary: A big book analysing the cases of collapse of past (and very recent) societies, from the author of best-selling 'Guns, Germs and Steel'.

Jared diamond maya collapse