Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

Jared Diamond

The question: "How companies have become extinct in the past? At the current rate of population growth, particularly the increase of economic, health and energy, contemporary societies will they survive tomorrow? "

The answer is formulated from a world tour in space and time - from the vanished societies in the past (the Easter Island, Pitcairn and Henderson Mimbres and Anasazi Indians of southwestern United States companies ugly and Inca, the Viking colonies in Greenland) to the vulnerable societies of today (Rwanda, Haiti and Santo Domingo, China, Montana and Australia).

In this comparative study, Jared Diamond concludes that there is no case in which the collapse of a society not to be due only to environmental damage. Several factors, five in number, always potentially come into play: environmental damage, climate change, hostile neighbors, dependency ratios with trading partners and the responses made by a company in pursuit of its own interest. This complexity of factors suggests that there is nothing inevitable today in the race to accelerated degradation of the globalized environment.

It is an extremely well documented book, including the methodological approach, which is well described and extremely rigorous. It is written in plain language, accessible to all. Jared Diamond's book is thus a truly scientific approach to the problem and absolutely devoid of any ideology and any form of controversy. In short, it is a book that any respectable person should have to read!

Although some book reviews criticize it harshly, I find their arguments are totally unfounded. Jared Diamond especially explains that technology is a major asset for changing the situation, only as long as we want to reverse the trend. S. Vernadsky assumes that the author "all his hatred of mankind, and particularly Chinese," which, I think, is an insult to this author. Jared Diamond is above all a humanist, who absolutely abhor any form of racism have lived many years with populations called "primitive." He knows perfectly how describe the extraordinary intelligence ("The Origin of Inequalities"). Going back a few years ago, criticism of the Chinese regime does not hate the Chinese, just as criticism of the Bush administration does not hate Americans!