Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail Or Succeed

In Jared Diamond’s follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Guns, Germs, and Steel, the author explores how climate change, the population explosion, and political discord create conditions for the collapse of civilization. Environmental damage, climate change, globalization, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices contributed to the demise of societies around the world, but some found solutions and persisted. Diamond traces patterns of catastrophe through historical-cultural narratives, from Easter Island and the Anasazi to Greenland and contemporary issues faced today. Despite our society’s wealth and power, warning signs emerge even in ecologically robust areas. Collapse raises urgent questions about how to avoid ecological suicide.