Book Review: "Collapse"

I just finished reading Jared Diamond's latest book, "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed." I found it to be, like his last book "Guns, Germs and Steel", a work of remarkable scholarly synthesis and a thoroughly enjoyable read. To share my joy in the hopes of persuading you to read it, I'll offer some of my thoughts on the book.

Diamond begins the book with his first case study, modern Montana. He goes into great detail about Montana's current environmental and economic troubles, and is careful to explain how each effects the other, and how Montanans are dealing with-or not dealing with-their issues. This actually sets the tone for the remainder of the book, as his purpose is to examine the environmental conditions of both past and present failed and successful societies and come to some conclusion as to what degree their success or failure was influenced by both their environmental conditions-and more importantly-their reaction to them. And by beginning in a modern "society" familiar to all Americans he immediately frees you of the assumption that this book will merely be about long-dead societies and dry archaeological research.

The reason for this is because Diamond isn't interested in examining these other societies simply for the sake of knowledge. Rather, his book is to serve as a guide into how modern societies can learn from these examples from the past and present, in order to utilize environmental resources in a way that is ultimately beneficial to the society.

The thing I found most note-worthy about the book is how Diamond helps you to see the relationship between these past societies and modern societies. For most of us it's very easy to view ancient societies in the abstract, as merely a collection of information we've received from archaeological excavation and whatever written records they may have left behind. It's harder to view them as those living in those societies must have viewed them, and to understand how what was happening to them may have appeared to the people living on those times. Why is that important? If we can understand how the members of those societies viewed what was happening to them, then we might be able to recognize signs of the same issues in our modern societies.

The most compelling example of this in the book is the genocide in modern Rwanda. Most of us, even those of us well-read on the topic, have come to view the genocide purely as a political, historical and cultural issue. But Diamond points us to the example of the Kanama Commune in Northwest Rwanda, which at the time of the genocide was populated almost entirely by Hutu. Despite this and the fact that most of the genocidal violence was committed by Hutu towards the Tutsi, there were still mass killings in the province. Why? As two researchers discovered, it was mostly the result of extreme competition over land resources, much of which had grown scarce as a result of over-population. So what at first appears to us to be but a minor element in the overall genocide, in fact reveals itself more to be opportunistic violence aimed at securing land.

The purpose of this example is to help us realize that what appears to us as political or social disorder may in fact be caused ultimately by environmental factors. Much evidence of the collapse of past societies tells us that as societies began to run out of resources, rather then sit around and passively starve, the societies were frequently split by conflict, turning either on themselves (Easter island) or on their neighbors (Mayan kingdoms.) To me this is the most important lesson of the book, that the negative effects of environmental degradation can come to us disguised as "mere" political conflict.

He also points out the efforts the elites went to in these societies to insulate themselves from the effects of environmental degradation, citing the examples of the Norse chiefs in Greenland, the chiefs of Easter Island, and the elites of Anasazi society, who lived in relative affluence compared to their subjects. Yet when faced with the ultimate exhaustion of their resources and the destruction of their societies, Diamond points out the these people frequently had the privilege of merely being the "last to starve." He compares this to the circumstances of the elite today who in America live in gated communities, or who in third world nations live in high-rise apartments in the city while the majority of other citizens live in shanty towns. Diamond doesn't point this similarity out because he's secretly a Marxist who wishes to deprive the elites of their property. Rather, he highlights this because the ability of the elites to shelter themselves from the consequences of their decisions, as the leaders of their nations, skews those very decisions that they make. Elites who are shielded from the most immediate effects of environmental degradation may only become aware of the consequences of their own decisions when it is too late not only for the other citizens of their nation, but for themselves. To emphasize this he gives us the example of residents of New Guinea, who have maintained sustainable levels of agriculture on their island for nearly 3,000 years. In contrast to the elite of Easter Island, who competed with each other to build larger and larger statues and shielded themselves from the effects deforestation as long as they could, the leaders in New Guinea society lived in huts like other citizens, and were expected to grow their own food for their own households in the same manner as other farmers.

In fact, since Diamond's overall purpose is to examine how societies made the decisions they did so as to learn how to emulate their successes and avoid their mistakes, he takes a careful look at how we arrive at the decisions we make today. He's point in the manner in which market forces can hurt environmental interests, but he counters that with examples of how the market can actually work to regulate the use of natural resources. He points the fallacies by which earlier societies made decisions in error as to how long their resources would last, how they could sustain their resources, or how they failed to be aware that they were even facing environmental problems, and points out how those same fallacies operate today. He examines ways in which change can occur from the top-down, in the form of regulation or even dictatorial decree, and from the bottom-up, in the forms of market pressure, grass-roots campaigns, and local initiatives, and gives us examples of each and how effective and ineffective they are. In other words, he does his best to adapt the lessons of failed societies to our societies today in a manner that we can use.

In his conclusion, Diamond is cautiously optimistic. While most of the book is about societies that failed to address their environmental problems, he mentions several that succeeded in a variety of ways. He highlights late medieval Japan, which successfully curtailed deforestation to become one of the most densely forested first word nations on Earth. He discusses the example of New Guinea, which has been successfully cultivated for human habitation for three millennia. And he highlights the isolated Pacific island of Tikopia, which succeeded in the same conditions under which several other Pacific islands failed. All of these are examples not only of how past societies succeeded, but of how we can overcome our environmental issues today, to succeed and thrive as well.

Of course there is considerably more then this to his book, and no review as short as mine could hope to do it justice. If you want to have some idea of the environmental problems we face both on a local and on a global level in the coming decades, as well as ideas for how we can deal with those problems, pick up "Collapse" and give it a thorough read. It's well worth the time and effort.