Interesting and well documented. A GREAT READ!!!

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	• Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed Jared Diamond Penguin (Non-Classics), 2005 - 592 pages average customer review:based on 399 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Good book, but needs a whole lot of editing

If Jared Diamond considers running for the U.S. presidency, I may support him. This amazing polymath is incredibly well-informed, resourceful, and will lend an ear to various opinions on different issues without compromising his convictions based on his experience and research. Most people have read his "Guns, Germs, and Steel", but fewer people I know have read "Collapse" or "The Third Chimpanzee", both of which are highly informative for knowledge-thirsty readers like myself. All of his books display an amazing breadth of knowledge and interest that it is hard to imagine that this guy used to be a physiologist. Now he seems to have found his permanent niche in geography.

Jared's resourcefulness and absorption for the subject of why past societies collapsed and his case against "environmental determinism" are laudable. Many parts of the book read like they were written late at night, when the author is deep in analytical thoughts. Some parts were extremely fluent and readable, for example, the chapter on Montana and the chapters on Hispaniola, New Guinea, Rwanda, and Japan. You could curl up with these chapters, enjoying every paragraph.

Other parts, however, read like a dry textbook, or seemed like inscribed from a lecture in his UCLA classroom. The degree to which he enumerates reasons or factors (again and again) for societal collapses can be tiresome. Or, in confronting our current environmental problems, he yet again reminds us of what transpired on Easter Island, Pitcairn Islands, Mayan and Anasazi societies, New Guinea, Greenland, Australia, etc. You get the feeling that he is injecting his points right into your head. Sometimes he tries to add a funny, if not geeky, remark that is unworthy of what should be a serious book in geography and history. Chapters on Norse settlements in Greenland and the white settlement of Australia were written at great lengths that could use some editing.

Jared is a decent, but not an elegant, writer. If I was going to read another comprehensive treatment of a similar subject, I would be more excited if it was written more succintly--and much more elegantly. Perhaps he could take up the writing styles of Richard Dawkins, Thomas Friedman, Stanley Karnow, Stephen Ambrose, Pater Hopkirk, and Oliver Sacks, to name a few. I give him credit nonetheless for writing about an important subject that is relevant for modern-day societies. With improved technology, globalization, and the availability of knowledge and understanding of which societies collapsed, including how and why, we have the choice not to repeat the hard lessons of history.

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An Education in Ecology

This is by far the best book I have read on what makes societies disappear from the face of the earth while others continue. A must read for anyone concerned with overpopulation and conservation of natural resources.

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Great for falling asleep to

This book is.. boring. Real boring. It's like reading over-and-over 50 page chapters that all have the same punch line conclusion. I'll give Diamond credit for being ridiculously knowledgeable about his subject areas, anthropology, biology, geography, etc. He's so knowledgeable he can go on for 30 pages about Caribou poop in Greenland.

Interesting read

Jared Diamond provides some interesting thoughts, and provides the background to support his ideas and concepts. Allows the reader to thinlk through the individual issues - what set up the fall, what was happening in the environment (human, political, etc.), and did they see it coming.
Thought provoking - a good read. Wish all the political candidates would read this - it might change some of their thought processes.

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Interesting and well documented. A GREAT READ!!!

I really enjoyed reading this book. I must admit I mostly read fiction, so I cannot compare this book to other writings, but I found the book well-written and easy to understand.

The author gives a bunch of examples to illustrate and justify his arguments and tells us dozens of stories to complement his ideas. The book is quite long but I rarely got bored while reading it. There is always an interesting detail to focus on and keep turning pages.

The books covers different past and present societies as examples to illustrate various factors influencing a tendency for a society to collapse. Easter Island, Vikings, Rwanda (genocide), Dominican Republic and Haiti and Polynesian Islands are among them.

I found the last part of the book a bit less convincing and harder to follow. The author describes his concerns about mines, forests, fishing,... and some parts seem endless.

Anyway, most of the book is great and I think everyone should have a look at it.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, page 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

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