Collapse How Societies Choose to Fail Or Succeed

In his runaway bestseller <i>Guns, Germs, and Steel</i>, Jared Diamond brilliantly examined the circumstances that allowed Western civilizations to dominate much of the world. Now he probes the other side of the equation: What caused some of the great civilizations of the past to fall into ruin, and what can we learn from their fates? Using a vast historical and geographical perspective ranging from Easter Island and the Maya to Viking Greenland and modern Montana, Diamond traces a fundamental pattern of environmental catastrophe—one whose warning signs can be seen in our modern world and that we ignore at our peril. Blending the most recent scientific advances into a narrative that is impossible to put down, <i>Collapse</i>exposes the deepest mysteries of the past even as it offers hope for the future. <br><br>“Diamond’s most influential gift may be his ability to write about geopolitical and environmental systems in ways that don’t just educate and provoke, but entertain.” <i>—The Seattle Times</i><br><br>“Extremely persuasive . . . replete with fascinating stories, a treasure trove of historical anecdotes [and] haunting statistics.” <i>—The Boston Globe</i><br><br>“Extraordinary in erudition and originality, compelling in [its] ability to relate the digitized pandemonium of the present to the hushed agrarian sunrises of the far past.” <i>—The New York Times Book Review</i>