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Liked It4 of 4 members found this review helpful “Learning from History? |
Didn’t Like It1 of 1 members found this review helpful “This is the most boring book I've ever read. I do care about the environment, but it was so long and every chapter had repetition.” see full review » see other reviews » |
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“Excellent study on several societies and how they rose and collapsed. With caution for current societies.”
Alan Adler wrote this review 3 days ago. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“A very indepth study on how societies fail to adapt to change. A lot of real life examples, and how fixes seem obvious when looking at the past, however not much action taken in the present to prevent such mishaps, due to the vested interests of several well to do clans.”
Jan J wrote this review 12 days ago. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No“The premise of this book is good, in fact, just as good as his previous book, "guns, germs and steel". However, this book is much harder to read, to the point that I made it half way and the skimmed the rest. I can only recommend it for serious readers.”
Andrew Dempsey wrote this review Monday, May 20, 2013. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No“"Reviews (from Wikipedia) Tim Flannery gave Collapse the highest praise in Science, writing[4] ... the fact that one of the world's most original thinkers has chosen to pen this mammoth work when his career is at his apogee is itself a persuasive argument that Collapse must be taken seriously. It is probably the most important book you will ever read. The Economist's review was generally favorable, although the reviewer had two disagreements. First, the reviewer felt Diamond was not optimistic enough about the future. Secondly, the reviewer claimed Collapse contains some erroneous statistics: for instance, Diamond supposedly overstated the number of starving people in the world.[5] University of British Columbia professor of ecological planning William Rees wrote that Collapse's most important lesson is that societies most able to avoid collapse are the ones that are most agile; they are able to adopt practices favorable to their own survival and avoid unfavorable ones. Moreoever, Rees wrote that Collapse is "a necessary antidote" to followers of Julian Simon, such as Bjørn Lomborg who authored The Skeptical Environmentalist. Rees explained this assertion as follows:[6] Human behaviour towards the ecosphere has become dysfunctional and now arguably threatens our own long-term security. The real problem is that the modern world remains in the sway of a dangerously illusory cultural myth. Like Lomborg, most governments and international agencies seem to believe that the human enterprise is somehow 'decoupling' from the environment, and so is poised for unlimited expansion. Jared Diamond's new book, Collapse, confronts this contradiction head-on. In a recent edition of Energy and Environment, Jennifer Marohasy of the Institute of Public Affairs has a critical review of Collapse, in particular its chapter on Australiaâs environmental degradation. Marohasy claims that Diamond reflects a popular view that is reinforced by environmental campaigning in Australia, but which is not supported by evidence, and argues that many of his claims are easily disproved.[7] In his review in The New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell highlights the way in which Diamond's approach differs from traditional historians by focusing on environmental issues rather than cultural questions.[8] Diamondâs distinction between social and biological survival is a critical one, because too often we blur the two, or assume that biological survival is contingent on the strength of our civilizational values... The fact is, though, that we can be law-abiding and peace-loving and tolerant and inventive and committed to freedom and true to our own values and still behave in ways that are biologically suicidal. While Diamond doesn't reject the approach of traditional historians, his book, according to Gladwell, vividly illustrates the limitations of that approach. Gladwell demonstrates this with his own example of a recent ballot initiative in Oregon, where questions of property rights and other freedoms were subject to a free and healthy debate, but serious ecological questions were given scant attention. In 2006 the book was shortlisted for The Aventis Prizes for Science Books award, eventually losing out to David Bodanis' Electric Universe.[9]"”
Steve Garai wrote this review Sunday, May 19, 2013. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No“Highly recommend this book! There are a lot to be learned from past mistakes! The funny thing is, people forget the past too easily and history repeats itself! ”
Rajiv Chandramohan wrote this review Thursday, May 16, 2013. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Detailed, compelling and immensely frightening.”
Lukas Vermeer wrote this review Monday, May 13, 2013. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“If you like perspective into problems, then you'll like Collapse. It's not a doomsday-type book or Greenist book, but rather, a evidence-based book on commonalities on how cultures throughout time have failed. From Easter Island to a US State. No one incident ended a society, but rather, the alignment of 3 incidents from a set of common problems. Each problem itself is surmountable, but itâs the alignment of any 3 that causes a collapse. The author spent his life gathering the evidence for this book. It gave me a refreshing perspective on what makes a society succeed or fail. A fascinating read - I read it twice. ”
Rick Stomphorst wrote this review Monday, May 6, 2013. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No“This book describes the demise of societies and is both a corollary and mirror image to the author's book about the rise of societies. The examples of collapse as described are explained in terms of the availability or not of the available natural resources, where human behaviour is mostly to blame. In that sense a disturbing message in these times of scarce resource management and climate change.”
Peter Rooijmans wrote this review Wednesday, May 1, 2013. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No“Gonna scare myself silly about the doom of our time.”
Philip S J Brittan wrote this review Tuesday, April 30, 2013. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No“it was a difficult read and the author is biased--he studies civilizations in fragile ecosystems to uncover why they were not sustainable. One of his more subtle observations, which is the lack of resources, especially water, leads to conflict today in Africa and other places has been written about in the popular press. Another astute observation in the book: civilizations have a poor track record of taking rational decisions to prevent collapse due to climate/ environmental damage is relevant in the global warming debate in my opinion. ”
samirn98 wrote this review Monday, April 29, 2013. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
