Environmental damage, climate change, rapid population growth, unstable trade partners, and pressure from enemies were all factors in the demise of the doomed societies, but other societies found solutions to those same problems and persisted. Moving from the prehistoric Polynesian culture on Easter Island to the formerly flourishing Native American civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya, the doomed medieval Viking colony on Greenland, and finally to the modern world, Diamond traces a fundamental pattern of catastrophe, spelling out what happens when we squander our resources, when we ignore the signals our environment gives us, and when we reproduce too fast or cut down too many trees. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed: Revised Edition Paperback Januby Jared Diamond (Author) 3,188 ratings Book 2 of 3: Civilizations Rise and Fall Series See all formats and editions Kindle 16.99 Read with Our Free App Audiobook 0.00 Free with your Audible trial Hardcover 20.93 1 New from 20. Now, Diamond probes the other side of the equation: What caused some of the great civilizations of the past to collapse into ruin, and what can we learn from their fates?' 'As in Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond weaves an all-encompassing global thesis through a series of historical-cultural narratives.

Understanding these reasons may help present-day societies do better.

'In his Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond examined how and why Western civilizations developed the technologies and immunities that allowed them to dominate much of the world. Diamond proposes four main reasons: (1) people may fail to see them coming (2) they may fail to recognize the symptoms as dangers (3) they may fail to try any solutions and (4) their solutions simply fail.

Collapse diamond