Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

Collapse is bound to become one of the most important books of our time because it is brilliant, insightful, and very captivating. It begs the crucial question, "How can our world best avoid committing ecological suicide?"

Jared Diamond explored how and why Western civilizations gained the technologies and immunities that enabled them to control most of the globe in his million-copy book Guns, Germs, and Steel. Diamond now examines the flip side of the coin in this outstanding companion volume: What led to the downfall of some of the great civilizations in history, and what can we infer from their experiences?

Similar to Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond employs an intriguing array of historical and cultural anecdotes to build a comprehensive worldwide argument. Diamond follows the basic pattern of disaster from the Polynesian societies of Easter Island to the thriving American civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya, and eventually to the fatal Viking settlement on Greenland. Some cultures perished due to a combination of circumstances including bad political decisions, fast population increase, environmental degradation, and climate change, while other communities managed to find answers and continue. While China and Australia are attempting to find creative solutions, comparable issues confront us now and have already caused catastrophe in Rwanda and Haiti. In spite of our society's seemingly limitless resources and unparalleled political influence, troubling indicators are starting to surface, even in environmentally healthy regions such as Montana.

Collapse is bound to become one of the most important books of our time because it is brilliant, insightful, and very captivating. It begs the crucial question, "How can our world best avoid committing ecological suicide?"