Reddit reviews Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

Guns, Germs and Steel gives an almost biological view of conquest and innovation, and Collapse by Jared Diamond gives the cultural view.

Awesome book; awful review.

The bulk of the review is contained in the following paragraph:
>The first half of the book is boring to read for me. In reality this first half was just a review of our world history. We all know their existence but what we don’t know is how they were phased out on the face of the earth and besides the past connects us to the present. If it happens to them, it might happen to us as well. Likewise, being self–sufficient doesn’t guarantee that we are “dilemma proof” in the future. Everything is interconnected now. The saying “United we stand, divided we fall” may be impossible to reiterate nowadays.

I quote at length to underscore both brevity and banality of the essence of this review and I say essence because this constitutes most of what passes as preamble to an extensive list of quotations from the book itself, without the benefit of context or commentary.

What's perhaps most bewildering is how one leaps from that pitiful assessment to proclaim:
>This book is “must have” to head of states, environmentalists, journalists, environment ministers, businessmen and above all to every citizens of the world 16 years old and above. Our future is at stake!!!

True enough, but it surely doesn't follow from precedes it.

Diamond's plan for the book "resembles a boa constrictor that has swallowed two very large sheep." Part I has a single chapter on Montana; Part II has several chapters on past societies: Easter Island, Pitcairn, The Anasazi, Mayans, Vikings in Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland; Part III deals with modern societies: Rwanda, Dominican Republic & Haiti, China and Australia; and Part IV is about practical lessons.

Much of the "first half [that] was just a review of our world history" (which the reviewer found boring) actually dealt with present day Montana and is essential to what follows as it sets up a framework for analyzing various aspects of how a society is dependent upon its ecosystem (both natural and economic environments). The remainder of the first half of the book dealt with how various historical societies have indeed failed. This theme continues into the third quarter of the book, which assesses recent problems and risks of collapse facing current societies, and is wrapped up in the final part on practical lessons.

I highly recommend the book, although much better reviews are available on Amazon.

TL;DR: Read the book; skip this review.

1491 was a great read that examined the technology and cultural developments of the Native Americans before the arrival of Europeans. One of its main conceits is to tear down the myth that they were simple people in touch with nature, when they actually actively worked to alter the landscape to fit their needs. It was one of the first history books I found so engrossing that I couldn't put down.

Collapse has a wider scope; it examines dozens of societies that have existed throughout history that for one reason or another "collapsed". It shows how combinations a society's choices and external forces caused the failure of Viking settlements in Greenland, the extinction of the people of Easter Island, to the failure of modern countries, like Rwanda. Each chapter is about seventy or eighty pages and fairly self-contained, so you can pick it up and jump in where ever you like.

This has happened many times in localized regions throughout history. A brilliant scientist named Jared Diamond wrote an incredible book on just that topic:

http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Fail-Succeed/dp/0143036556/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255826892&sr=8-1-spell

This might work for you:

http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Fail-Succeed/dp/0143036556/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1291667723&sr=8-1

Jared Diamond can tell you all about it without going on a foolhardy tirade.

What you say is totally true, unfortunately that while the ag products Australia makes do have high monetary value, the soil is not productive and you are importing the bulk of your staples.

I'd copy and paste to cite, but I only have a 'dead tree' version of Collapse amazon-link. So I can't post a link, but this is covered extensively in Chapter 13.

Jared Diamond uses Australia agriculture as an example of catastrophically unmaintainable development with very poor initial soil conditions. Jared loves Australia, but the description of how out of whack aus agriculture is was very disturbing.