About this title: In this fascinating book, Diamond seeks to understand the fates of past societies that collapsed for ecological reasons, combining the most important policy debate of this generation with the romance and mystery of lost worlds.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Viking Adult
Date Published: 2004
ISBN-13:9780670033379ISBN:0670033375
Description: Good. Used item may show library stamps, stickers and marks. Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Description: Very Good. Great condition for a used book! Minimal wear. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Penguin Books
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9780143036555ISBN:0143036556
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Corners curled and covers creased. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 576 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Viking
Date Published: c2005
ISBN-13:9780670033379ISBN:0670033375
Description: Very Good in Very Good dust jacket. 0670033375. Several b/w photos, indexed, 576 pages, a nice solid copy, pages bright, previous owner's name, else VERY GOOD, in an attractive dustjacket, in a new clear mylar DJ cover. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Date Published: 2005-12-27
ISBN-13:9780143036555ISBN:0143036556
Description: New. FIRST PAPERBACK EDITION: EIGHTH PRINTING: Trade Paperback: Published by Penguin Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group. Wraps in Excellent condition. Spine smooth; binding tight. Glossy Photo (B/W) insert. Pages crisp, clean and unmarked. Professionally and securely packaged, with Tracking Number. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Viking, New York
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9780670033379ISBN:0670033375
Description: Photographs. Good in Good jacket. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. Clean, good binding, some pages were folded at corners, book corners are bumped. read more
Description: New. THIS IS A NEW BOOK! Book has almost no shelfwear; Check out my performance reviews. My customers LOVE my service! Delivery confirmation available for every item shipped. Reliable customer service and no-hassle return policy. read more
Edition: First edition.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Viking Books
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9780670033379ISBN:0670033375
Description: New in new dust jacket. First Edition, First Print. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 592 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
"I thought this book was great. Really thought provoking. Discussing various civilizations and how they 'chose' to fail or succeed. Some societies chose to not assimilate into the cultures they joined or adapt to the lands in which they traveled to and they paid the price through the collapse of their society. They chose to grow traditional crops from their homelands, even if the land would not sustain them. They chose to not live like or associate with the 'heathen' outsiders of the new lands and thus did not learn the skills necessary to survive the winters and environmental hardships of that new, unknown land.
Other societies made choices to survive. They chose to limit their populations through birth control and continuous expedition when they knew they lived in lands with scarce resources. They chose to not deplete their resources. They chose to assimilate and learn from people that did know how to survive. They knew that if they did not find a way to adapt to their environs or to work with other peoples, then no one would survive, or at least their society would not survive.
Societies survive when they make sustainable choices. Societies collapse when they chose to deplete their resources, live beyond their means, and refuse to adapt to the world around them.
Very interesting to look at the societies that have failed and those that have succeeded. What can we learn from these societies? What are we doing to make sure we are not making the same mistakes that lead to collapse? Which path are we on?"
"Really this is probably a four star book. It is a well researched and very informative book about the collapse of societies past, present, and future, due to environmental factors. Though I was glad that I read it,I do have some nitpicking to do around the subject of its inaccessible length and repetitive nature. In general, it is not a very readable book. For all of his desire to make these ideas about our environmental peril known to the general public, he has written a rather dry (parched dry -- really, really dry) and academic tome. If this book was any longer, we would have been into mulitiple volumes. I found myself saying, "Alright, I get it -- lets move on..." And as long as I am nitpicking, the pictures that came as an insert in the middle of the book -- pictures being the key way to grab the attention of the difficult reader -- were almost an afterthought. These pictures, which seem like a small thing, were really a symbol of how out of touch Diamond is with what drives those he might want to convince. Not only were they hard to tie to the text in some cases, but when they were tied to the text, half the time it was to a part of the text that was relatively uninteresting. That being said, I did feel very glad that I had read the book. His methodical approach leaves you feeling very sure that the environmental problems he poses are real and that the danger is eminent. If you weren't going to read the whole book, at least read the chapter with his rebuttals of the one liner excuses that most people give for not caring about the environment... He has done a good job writing this book in so many ways -- but has missed an opportunity to reach out of the echochamber of already-environmentally-concerned into the regions of the environmental-heathen.
There are lots of other things that you could say about this book. It is fodder for a semster worth of discussions. However, thats jsut its problem -- it is written like a text book."
"This is a very well researched, surprisingly readable academic argument that societies built on environmentally fragile areas often collapse when they misuse their environment. Using past examples of societies that failed because of poor environmental management, Diamond makes a strong argument that in our times we are following similar poor decision-making processes. The first two thirds of the book was mostly examples of this pattern, so hard-pressed readers with little time can probably skip some of them once they've got the general idea of what Diamond is going after. The final two chapters of the book are really fascinating and should deserve a re-read, or at least an exploration of his further reading section, because they deal with why societies make poor choices that lead to long-term consequences, and what we can do about it now. But the whole book is indeed a really great read, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone interested in humans' interaction with their environment in history."
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