Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

from cdogzilla

Fascinating, grim, and hopeful. I have quibbles with Diamond's style at times ... I stopped caring about how much he loved Montana long before he stopped telling me about it. However, I was intrigued throughout; not even pages on soil erosion and forest management could flag my interest.

from Pretear

I picked up this book because Jared Diamond was lecturing at my university. I wanted to attend but I wanted to make sure I had read the book first. Sadly, the brilliant girl at the university box office told me that Jared Diamond was no Zach Braff (who ever that is) so this event was not likely t...

from nbmars

Collapse is an ambitious book in which Jared Diamond analyzes the causes of the collapse of several ancient and not so ancient identifiable societies. It is also a cautionary tale for the modern developed "first" world in that this is the story of the consequences of environmental degradation in ...

from Niecierpek

Diamond argues that environmentally `our world is presently on a non-sustainable course', and gives plenty of proof from the histories of the past and present societies to support it. Still, it's not a `doom and gloom' book. It is a book with a very strong caution in it. We still have a choice. T...

from ejp1082

Although Jared Diamond is careful to be objective and take a balanced view, it's impossible not to read this book and draw the parallels between the subject matter and our own civilization. Which makes it deeply relevant, and deeply frightening. This is one of the few books I'd describe as "Every...