Book Review: "Collapse"

In the NY Times Sunday Book Review, Gregg Easterbrook reviews Jared Diamond's latest book "Collapse", which is essentially a discussion of the whether the way our civilization is structured today can hope to last. Jared Diamond is the author of "Guns, Germs and Steel", which I regard as one of the best works of non-fiction I've ever read. In it, Jared lays out a compelling argument that the "accident" of geography has been the primary factor in determining the fate of human civilizations and nation-states. Easterbrook's review is really about both books, since as he states both books are really one long work published separately, premised on the same theory. I'll only touch on his discussion of "Germs, Guns and Steel" here, as I haven't read "Collapse" yet.

Easterbrook praises Diamond for his persuasive and thorough scholarship, but takes him to task for his conclusions.

''Guns'' asked why the West is atop the food chain of nations. Its conclusion, that Western success was a coincidence driven by good luck, has proven extremely influential in academia, as the view is quintessentially postmodern. Now ''Collapse'' posits that the Western way of life is flirting with the sudden ruin that caused past societies like the Anasazi and the Mayans to vanish. Because this view, too, is exactly what postmodernism longs to hear, ''Collapse'' may prove influential as well.

He goes on to say:

In this respect, ''Guns, Germs, and Steel'' is pure political correctness, and its P.C. quotient was a reason the book won praise. But the book must not be dismissed because it is P.C.: sometimes politically correct is, after all, correct.

What Easterbrook is referring to of course, is the longing of many of those in academia in the left to come to some explanation of why European civilizations have proven so dominant that doesn't somehow imply that the Europeans were smarter, more resourceful, harder working, more morally worthy, etc., then their human brethren in Africa, North and South America, and Asia. For the longest time of course Europeans assumed they were dominant for all these reasons and more, and in the p.c. backlash the pendulum has swung the other way. Easterbrook implies that Diamond's book is such a success among academia because it offers them precisely what they want. He then backs away from it, and is careful never to say that Diamond himself may have been looking for the p.c. explanation(he's not.) But I think it's unfair to say that Diamond's book has been such a success because it's politically acceptable to the left-leaning academia and reading public. I think his book is a success because it's well-written, intriguing, and compelling characteristics for which Easterbrook rightly gives credit for. I also think it's been so well-received because his theory is fundamentally sound, but Easterbrook believes that Diamond's basic theory is flawed:

Many thinkers have attempted single-explanation theories for history. Such attempts hold innate appeal -- wouldn't it be great if there were a single explanation! -- but have a poor track record. My guess is that despite its conspicuous brilliance, ''Guns, Germs, and Steel'' will eventually be viewed as a drastic oversimplification. Its arguments come perilously close to determinism, and it is hard to believe that the world is as it is because it had to be that way.

It's very easy to see why Easterbrook feels this way once you read "Guns, Germs and Steel." Essentially, Diamond is arguing that the "accident" of geography played the greatest role in determining why western civilization has dominated the world for the last 500 years. But it's not determinism. In fact it's not really even "perilously close" to determinism. Here's where I think Easterbrook goes wrong.

First, he cites China as an example. To historians, China is a great mystery. China was poised to dominate the world as long as 1000 years ago, and yet China turned inward and pulled away from contact with the outside world to the largest extent possible. Easterbrook sees this as a flaw in Diamond's work; if geography gave China such a head start, why didn't China go on to conquer the world like Western civilization did? However, Diamond never says in his work that there is no room for human variation. He doesn't specifically discuss the power of ideas in his work; Diamond is more focus on the mundane, such as crop yield and climate conditions. But it seems clear to me that Diamond believes only that geography gave both western and Chinese society the potential for greatness. That does not meant that he believes that such greatness must follow suit. What Diamond is saying is that while the West and China had to luxury to achieve greatness thanks to their resources; sub-Saharan societies never even had the choice. They achieved only the greatness that their environment made possible for them.

Easterbrook think Diamond's theory has been so widely accepted because it's acceptable to the academic left. But the reason Diamond's theory is such a success is because we have no other theories that even come close to explaining the disparity among nations. It is true that one can go too far in looking for a theory that doesn't leave the rest of the world looking like underachievers, by saying that there are essentially no differences among nations and ethnicities, even the realm of the political and the philosophical. But you can also go to far in the other direction, saying that the only reason that western societies triumphed was because of their superior political and economic ideas. Easterbrook says that because the West did possess those ideas, then Diamond must be implying that culture was geographically determined...and if culture is geographically determined, then why did China retreat into itself if it possessed as many resources? But what I think Diamond is saying is that geography and environment put those societies in a place where those ideas could develop; not where they necessarily would. Again, there is room for variation. Perhaps Europe received just the right combination of ideas and resources to dominate the world; but the fact is that whatever else, they had the resources...and in that environment, one could speculate the ideas are certain to follow at some point. Given time, who is to say that China would have chosen to remain isolated, even without the intervention of the outside world? Again, Diamond's point is that this is a choice that other societies never had. Capitalism may have flourished among the Aztecs, had the conditions for such a thing been right. They were not.

Premised on that, Diamond goes on to discuss the future of civilization in "Collapse." I'm looking forward to reading it, and maybe I'll offer my own little book review when I get a chance.