Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed is the glass-half-empty follow-up to his Pulitzer Prize-winning Guns, Germs, and Steel. While Guns, Germs, and Steel explained the geographic and environmental reasons why some human populations have flourished, Collapse uses the same factors to examine why ancient societies, including the Anasazi of the American Southwest and the Viking colonies of Greenland, as well as modern ones such as Rwanda, have fallen apart. Not every collapse has an environmental origin, but an eco-meltdown is often the main catalyst, he argues, particularly when combined with society's response to (or disregard for) the coming disaster. Still, right from the outset of Collapse, the author makes clear that this is not a mere environmentalist's diatribe. He begins by setting the book's main question in the small communities of present-day Montana as they face a decline in living standards and a depletion of natural resources. Once-vital mines now leak toxins into the soil, while prion diseases infect some deer and elk and older hydroelectric dams have become decrepit. On all these issues, and particularly with the hot-button topic of logging and wildfires, Diamond writes with equanimity.

I bought the audio book

My wife and I have really gotten into learning more about the world and societies during dinner time. We listen together and review the cd that we just listened to and talk for hours upon the subject with some pretty heafty conversation and contraversy. We could not wait to listen to the cd's every night. Collapse did the opposite. My wife and I just finished listening to CD 2 of 8. I fell asleep on both CD's! I was fully rested on both of the disks on 2 seperate nights. Good thing I was not listening in the car. My wife started surfing the net on the second cd, not because it sparked any thought but more over boredom. If you are not a professor of palm trees or a scientist of pollen dating, you will find this book absolutely boring!

Eye-opening

Overall, an excellent book. The fascinating historical studies of past civilizations drew me into this book, and the presentation of today's situation it left me with a much greater awareness of the seriousness of today's environmental challenges.

I was particularly impressed with the author's avoidance of the overused stereotype (common to many pro-environment works) that industry is necessarily a bad environmental steward. Diamond does an admirable job contrasting good and bad environmental stewardship by industry, and the motivating factors that can lead to either situation.

Two small nitpicks: First, the pace of the book gets somewhat tedious at times, but the result does tend to lend credibility to his arguments. Second, his conclusion that the Greenland Norse's clinging to their Christian beliefs was a significant factor in their downfall was overstated. It would have been more correct to identify the problem simply as the Norse's clinging to the outward cultural manifestations of mainland European Christianity. (A look at Christian religious practices around the world today shows numerous examples where the outward manifestations of Christian religion have been adapted to the particular needs of local situations and cultures).

Excellent Wake-Up Call!

Diamond initially focuses on how environmental abuse caused the collapse of several societies - eg. those on Easter Island, the Norse in Greenland, and Chaco Canyon settlements in New Mexico, and the Mayas in South America made choices that seriously affected their environment and subsequently limited their ability to survive. He then goes on to cover Rwanda (severe economic pressures from overpopulation providing a climate that encourages civil war), and China - where an enormous population, combined with efforts to dramatically improve living standards, is creating the risk of future environmental catastrophe.

Diamond, however, does not offer concrete solutions, nor project the outcome of current U.S. policies, perhaps because doing so would have become overly controversial to cover adequately in an already 500+ page book.

Nonetheless, Americans need to rethink our impact on the environment. In particular, we need to replace our lack of effective action on reducing illegal immigration, fuel consumption, and carbon-dioxide emissions. Significant improvements in these areas would reduce our serious trade deficit, funding of volatile groups in the Mid-East, unemployment and declining real wages, crowding and demands on dwindling natural resources, and poor image in other areas of the world. It would also encourage or force Mexico etc. to more effectively resolve their own problems.

A number of years ago The Club of Rome tried to raise awareness of the need for substantially improved environmental sensitivity. It largely failed - hopefully Diamond will be more successful