Collapse - Jared Diamond

⭐ 8.0/10

(Originally written by Joseph)

This book is subtitled "How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed," and is one of these historical/ anthropological books I've come to love. It goes over a number of societies that have developed in precarious spots, and discussed why people there either survived or disappeared. So for instance, he talks about the Greenland Norse, and why they weren't able to adapt while the Inuit people were. It's all very interesting and big picture, essentially talking about how humans operate and survive.

I love Diamond, and loved this book, but this wouldn't be the book I'd recommend by him if I could only recommend one. It is filled with really interesting stories and ideas, but I would also say it had the most stuff I was also not interested in. There is always a few chapters in all his books that don't interest me, and this one has the most of the books I've read.

Still, chapters like Easter Island are so incredibly interesting, thinking about a group of people who, after a few generations, might think that their tiny island is the full extent of human existence. I loved the chapters on the Norse who refused to learn from Inuit people because they weren't civilized enough, yet had survived for thousands of years with very advanced marine technology. There was also a long chapter about Montana that made me really think about the value of beautiful land. Just lots of great stuff about the wild ways in which humans survive.

There's a few chapters at the end about how we can apply this to our modern societies, but this book is actually 20 years old and so I'd be curious to hear a modern version. Like, much of this is about environmental concerns, but was written before we even had electric cars.

But yeah, this book also gets quite technical here and there, and it's also just very long. It took me a few months to get through this book. It's great, and I learned a lot, but yeah, his other books did a bit more for me.