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“Collapse” by Jared Diamond
Jared Diamond’s, “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed”, deals with the struggles and collapses of societies of the past, as well as the struggles of today and the possible future collapses of some of the places we have spent so many years developing. Diamond explains the factors that have brought past societal collapses on, and how these factors couldvery well lead to further destruction. The five main points Jared Diamond states have led to downfall in the past are comprised of climate change, collapse of essential trading partners, poor relationships with neighbors, failure to adapt to environmental issues, and environmental problems in general. Throughout his book, Jared Diamond tells how these problems have led to failure of severaldifferent societies including the Anasazi of southwestern North America, the Greenland Norse, the Maya of Central America, and many more.
Diamond begins his book by discussing one of his favorite places to visit, Montana. He tells about his first visits to Montana over 50 years ago on fly fishing trips and how it was one of the most thriving states in the U.S. at the time. He goes on to tell howtoday, the opposite is true about the state. Montana’s glaciers are depleting, the land is being polluted by mines, and the once prosperous industries, farming and ranching, have nearly vanished. Diamonds largest argument for Montana’s downfall over the past few decades is the incapability to learn from history. I agree with Diamond and believe one time should be enough and as a society we shouldnot allow these past crises to happen again. By studying history and seeing just how we have allowed the failure of different societies, we can see what we must change in order to prevent it from happening again. I also believe that by analyzing the history of these fallen societies, we need to come up with the best possible way to fix the problems and stick to it. The biggest problem withfixing a falling society is that so many individuals have different opinions on how to fix the problem, when we need to be set one specific answer.
One large societal collapse that illustrates several of Diamond’s factors of failure is the fall of Greenland Norse. He states how the Vikings came to Greenland, mistreated the environment, refused to adapt, and in turn, became extinct. Reading on,you see that the Greenland Inuit came to the same territory later, and have managed to survive to this day. In my opinion, this is a great example that the collapse of the Vikings at Greenland along with many other societies was not imminent, but could have been saved. This makes me believe that with new technology and the continuation of the study of past collapses, societies have the choice tosurvive, yet not all decide to act on it. Current day, Diamond gives examples of places that may someday become extinct like the societies in the past. I believe that indeed this could happen, but I can only hope with things such as the growing of globalization in present day we would not allow a society to get to the point of extinction. With the world being so interconnected today unlikeduring past collapses, it would be a lot harder for the world to allow an entire region to collapse. Just as foreign intervention has happened so many times throughout our past to get a country or region back on its feet, I believe with today’s globalization, foreign intervention will only come quicker if extinction of a region is ever a possibility.
While parts one and two of Diamond’s Collapsedeal with the struggles and falls of past societies, part three returns to the modern world. Diamond addresses four very different modern day societies. He discusses the third world disaster of Rwanda, the failure of Haiti (unlike its neighbor the Dominican Republic), the problems facing China as it fights to catch up to the First World, and Australia. The first society Diamond discusses is that...