Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

A well written book.

Collapse by Jared Diamond accurately discusses the concept of societies failing to thrive and falling apart. Within the book, Diamond analyzes societies of the past from all corners of the globe, from the Norse in the Arctic to the Easter Islanders in the Pacific. Through each society Diamond figures out how the territory was set up and what exactly brought down the collapse of the people there. Most of the reasons that societies collapsed had to deal with the environment that they were attempting to live in. For example, if people attempted to colonize an area that had poor soil, that would lead to a variety of problems for the society. The fields there would only be fit for farming or animal raising for a couple of years before the resources were depleted, and it would take a very long time for them to grow back due to poor soil quality. This would mean growing food would have to take place on a very small scale, limiting resources greatly and increasing the risk of starvation. The poor soil would also lead to slow tree growth, meaning that if a society wasn’t careful then they would use up their lumber supply quicker than they can grow it back, and without wood a society will risk failure due to lack of supplies. Therefore, poor environment quality as well as quick exhaustion of the lands resources helped cause the collapse of a number of societies in the past. Why would societies of the past overuse their natural resources so fast? Couldn’t they see that their ways of life were destroying the landscape? Diamond answers questions such as these, explaining that while it’s easy for us in the future to see what the problems were, they weren’t so clear for those colonizing the land at the time. Many of the societies that collapsed happened to first settle their while the land was at its best, when the soil was rich and the climate was good for growing, and a time that wouldn’t last. The settlers made their homes there and took advantage of the prosperous times, th...