Collapse: A Book Review

Collapse
How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
By Jared Diamond

A Book Review by Jenna Healy

I have to first say, I really enjoy reading Jared Diamond. His Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Guns, Germs, and Steel is one of my favorite books to date. Jared Diamond has a heavy scientific yet palatable style of writing that appeals to both the scientist and the writer in me. He has an extensive network of brilliant minds helping him to research his projects, allowing him to write with confidence in conclusions I can only imagine could take one man his entire life.

Diamond is clearly a professor. He maps out his book in several different ways, making it easy for a reader to pick up where he/she has left off and know exactly where they have been and where they are going. He also uses great visuals and maps to bring the stories home.

Summary

The book begins with the prologue: A Tale of Two Farms, in which Diamond contrasts two farms: one surviving, one abandoned. He lays out a set of factors or five point framework of possible contributing factors to why a society collapses. “Four of those sets of factors—environmental damage, climate change, hostile neighbors, and friendly trade partners—may or may not prove significant for a particular society. The fifth set of factors—the society’s responses to its environmental problems—always proves significant” (page 11).

Addressing critics, he describes his environmentalism tendencies but also the need to engage with big business in order to solve some of the world’s environmental problems. He goes on, “thus, I am writing this book from the middle-of-the-road perspective, with experience of both environmental problems and of business realities” (page 17). This perspective is very relevant to our MBA venture.

This book includes both successes and failures in learning why societies collapse, as opposed to Guns, Germs, and Steel, which focused on the building up of societies.

The first part of Collapse speaks about the environmental problems in southwestern Montana in modern day, a place Diamond respects and has spent significant amounts of time in. Part Two (past societies) starts by giving insight into four past societies that all did collapse, all using the five point framework. He looks at Easter Island, Pitcairn and Henderson Islands, Native American society of the Anasazi in the southwestern United States, and the Maya. Diamond then takes an extensive look at Norse Greenland and the five point framework into its collapse.

Part Three focuses on modern societies; Rwanda’s genocide, the Dominican Republic and Haiti, China and Australia. Part Four focuses on the practical lessons; why some societies make disastrous decisions, big business and the environment and then ties it all in to what it means for us today.

Throughout the book, Diamond makes references to the world we live in… gloomily finding similarities in societies that have already collapsed.

In totality (as put by Wikipedia) Diamond lists eight different factors which have historically played a part in societal collapse.
1. Deforestation and habitat destruction
2. Soil problems
3. Water management problems
4. Overhunting
5. Overfishing
6. Effects of introduced species on native species
7. Overpopulation
8. Increase per capita impact of people

And four newer factors
1. Human caused climate change (global warming)
2. Buildup of environmental toxins
3. Energy shortage
4. Full human utilization of the earth’s photosynthetic capacity

Diamond links the root problem in the majority of causes to overpopulation. The only cause he does not link to overpopulation being introduction of non-native species.

This brings me to the subject matter most relevant in my reading of this book (though it’s been on my pleasure list to read for some time): China. If Jared Diamond thinks that most of the causes to societal collapse are due to overpopulation, how does the law China implemented a few years back to limit the number of children a mother can bare affect China’s collapse?

The Relevance of Collapse

Chapter 12 is Diamond’s chapter on China. He begins with the jaw dropping statistics, of which after the last year of research are no longer jaw dropping. 1,300,000,000 people, 1/5 of the world’s population, huge consumption, huge growth rate, with the most severe environmental problems of any country. Diamond points out that China’s problems are not solely China’s but also belong to the rest of the world.

Diamond gives a 360 degree complete analysis of factors contributing to the current state of China. He starts with their geography, population trends and economy. The fact that they implemented fertility control seems to have only shifted to more households with smaller families; population still growing exponentially. Also, along with the quickly growing economy, there is rapid urbanization. Air pollution is out of control, fertilizers and industrial waste is polluting groundwater. Soil problems as well as per capita cropland yield declining. Garbage is often shipped to China and put into landfills (cheaper than recycling, and yes, California participates in this). As a country that manufactures exports, the pollutants remain in China while the products do not.

From our research this year, I recall reading an article about a woman who started a recycling company and who was doing quite well, as an aside.

Diamond also talks about deforestation and the habitat being destroyed, including the grasslands and wetlands. There is an overwhelming loss of biodiversity, according to Diamond. Per capita consumption has increased five-fold in the past 25 years (I had to recall that the famine of Mao was 1959-1962, and should not effect this statistic) as well as an increasing number of exported items. He includes their entry into the World Trade Organization a few years ago, and also ties into their unique top down approach to government. Dimaond looked into insects and fish, native and non-native species, the timber industry, and the aspiration of Chinese to live a First World Lifestyle.

“China’s leaders used to believe that humans can and should conquer Nature, that environmental damage was a problem affecting only capitalist societies, and that socialist societies were immune to it. Now, facing overwhelming signs of China’s own severe environmental problems, they know better” (page 373).

So what does the future hold? “China’s geographic core was unified in 221 B.C. and has remained unified for most of the time since then” (page 374). This enables one ruler to control China, a geographically giant piece of land. Diamond concludes that things will get worse before they get better due to time lags and the momentum of damage already underway.

“China is lurching between accelerating environmental damage and accelerating environmental protection” (page 377). The outcome will affect the entire planet, not just China. Diamond admits to feeling despair and depression while writing this chapter, yet hopeful that the Chinese government will recognize that its environmental problems pose a larger danger than did their population growth, and are capable as implementing a strategy as bold as their fertility policy.

The last chapter I found to be of utmost relevance was Chapter 16: The World as a Polder: What Does it All Mean to Us Today?

Jared Diamond presents 12 significant factors (same as above) written in a slightly different format.

In relation to the destruction or losses of natural resources:
1. Destruction of natural habitats
2. Wild food sources
3. Loss of biodiversity
4. Erosion of soil

In relation to ceilings on natural resources:
5. Energy
6. Freshwater
7. Photosynthetic ceiling

In relation to harmful things we produce or move around:
8. Toxic chemicals
9. Alien species
10. Atmospheric gas changes

In relation to population issues:
11. The number of people on the planet
12. Their impact on the environment

Note: numbers 5,7,8 and 10 have become serious only recently.

While Diamond does say it will be difficult to reduce human impact on the earth, he does think it to be possible. The fact that today, we have archaeologists and television. We have learned the causation for collapse and have the ability to communicate it. We now have the opportunity to choose to make a difference.

What Diamond Did Well

A lot. His writing style is easy to read and very detailed. He maps out where he’s going and where he’s been. He has great research and knows a lot about any conclusion before he attempts to draw it. He is humble in revealing his first intention or interpretation being wrong. He adds a human quality to his writing, referencing big business and the need to accommodate both the environmental and business worlds into the present. I really enjoy and respect Jared Diamond’s writing.

What I think Diamond Could Have Done Better
At times Jared Diamond writes a little too much detail for my liking, but I would rather have too much than not enough. He has received criticism (as is expected when anyone writes a book!) about his facts being off regarding the number of starving people on the planet… in his defense, he’s talking about a dynamically changing planet, his facts are going to change from day to day. My one criticism is that Diamond did not bring in to discussion the ego of man and how materialistic and success hungry the planet is. In my opinion, that is one of the largest factors working against a more environmentally friendly planet.

In Closing

Before reading this book I had an idea of what it may be like… global warming, using up resources, population control… and really, those things are true, but Diamond proved there to be much more. He brought in so many good real life examples, did diligent research to bring the best facts available, and made them applicable to today’s society and state of the planet. I really enjoyed this read and will recommend it to others.