Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (also titled Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive) is a 2005 book by Jared M. Diamond, professor of geography and physiology at University of California, Los Angeles. Diamond's book deals with "societal collapses involving an environmental component, and in some cases also contributions of climate change, hostile neighbors, and trade partners, plus questions of societal responses" (p.... more

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (also titled Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive) is a 2005 book by Jared M. Diamond, professor of geography and physiology at University of California, Los Angeles. Diamond's book deals with "societal collapses involving an environmental component, and in some cases also contributions of climate change, hostile neighbors, and trade partners, plus questions of societal responses" (p. 15). In writing the book Diamond intended that its readers should learn from history (p. 23). In the prologue, Diamond summarizes Collapse in one paragraph, as follows. Diamond lists eight factors which have historically contributed to the collapse of past societies: Further, he says four new factors may contribute to the weakening and collapse of present and future societies: Diamond also writes about cultural factors, such as the apparent reluctance of the Greenland Norse to eat fish. The root problem in all but one of Diamond's factors... less