#20 in American history books
Use arrows to jump to the previous/next product

Reddit mentions of Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed: Revised Edition

Sentiment score: 10
Reddit mentions: 36

We found 36 Reddit mentions of Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed: Revised Edition. Here are the top ones.

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed: Revised Edition
Buying options
View on Amazon.com
or
    Features:
  • Penguin Books
Specs:
ColorGrey
Height5.46 Inches
Length1.3 Inches
Number of items1
Release dateJanuary 2011
Weight1.25 Pounds
Width8.42 Inches

idea-bulb Interested in what Redditors like? Check out our Shuffle feature

Shuffle: random products popular on Reddit

Found 36 comments on Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed: Revised Edition:

u/lensera · 173 pointsr/books

I've recently read Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse by Jared Diamond and found them to be quite intriguing.

GG&S

Collapse

u/DiscreteToots · 83 pointsr/worldnews

I'm a socialist with anarchist/Marxist sympathies, so I'm probably more receptive than most people to the economic/materialist critique you're offering, but just about everything you wrote here is wrong. It's historically uninformed. It romanticizes and idealizes. And it badly misses the point:

> Consumerism was forced upon the populace by profit-creation machines like corporations and advertisement agencies to drive our natural need to consume up beyond sustainable or even logical levels

Human beings have been destroying ecosystems since long before the birth of capitalism. The indigenous people you romanticize are guilty of it as well. It's not the fault of the elite. The elite are exactly what the rest of us would be and do what we'd do if we had their resources and power.

Humans are no different from any other animal, and the rich are no different from the poor; when you let us, we'll devour everything in our path until there's nothing left.

> Humans didn't always seek status and elevation - in fact, most peasantry throughout history was quite content with the wealth given to them by the natural world.

This isn't true. To the extent that it's even a claim that can be tested, it's false in every single instance I can think of. Human beings have always sought power, status and resources. Always.

If all you were saying were that corporations are parasitic, disastrous, amoral and hostile to the flourishing of any and all life that can't be extracted and converted into profit, I'd agree with you. But your historical critique is wrong -- and also dangerous, misguided and irresponsible. It deflects blame. It goes out of its way, very, very incorrectly, to argue that this is all the fault of a single economic system and a small sliver of the population.

All people are the problem, not just the rich or people who live in first-world countries. All social and economic systems have contributed to it, not just capitalism.

u/Knews2Me · 34 pointsr/atheism

Hey look at that, my evening is booked now.

Speaking of books, has anyone read his followup: Collapse?

u/soapdealer · 15 pointsr/AskHistorians

So, if you knew the position of every atom in the universe, you could write perfect history? So what?

One of the difficult things about history is you have limited evidence. Every written document from Anglo-Saxon England we possess would fit into a small box. The largest amount of surviving text we have from Ancient Rome is monument and gravestone inscriptions.

Our most sophisticated computer models can't predict the weather in 10 days or the stock market opening tomorrow, and we know way more about the current prices of stocks or the current weather data than we do about, say, Ancient Sparta. The data for any model based approach just isn't there. It some ways, environmental determinism in history is like being given a puddle of water and the room temperature and trying to figure out what the ice cube looked like.

There's a reason economic determinism in history has gone out of fashion, and that ecological determinism never really went in: it's a less useful model for understanding why things happen compared with a more nuanced approach.

FWIW, Diamond's follow up book, Collapse contained several sections specifically rebutting the suggestion that he was an "environmental determinist."

u/srm038 · 14 pointsr/worldbuilding

Have you read Collapse? Fascinating book dealing with that exact question. Not everyone agrees with his ideas but it's still a good jumping point.

From the Amazon page:
> Environmental damage, climate change, globalization, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were all factors in the demise of societies around the world, but some found solutions and persisted.

u/potatoisafruit · 13 pointsr/worldnews

It's only recently that America's forestation rate has increased, and only in the north. South and west are still in decline.

Excellent book if you're interested in learning why cultures would cut down the last tree, even when they know it's the last tree: Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.

u/LickMyUrchin · 8 pointsr/MorbidReality

That ELI5 is, of course by nature, too simplistic. The Germans didn't "install the Tutsi into power". Instead, Rwanda as it exists today is one of the few countries where the current borders pretty closely approximate with the borders of a complex hierarchical kingdom that existed before the country became a colony.

Colonial powers prefer using existing governing structures as it saves them the time and effort to set up an entire administrative system of their own, and in the case of Rwanda, this was easier than usual. They simply solidified the existing system, so in their eyes, at this point they weren't inducing volatility at all, but strengthening a stable system.

After WWI, the Belgians took over the administrative functions and they not only continued to rely on these governing structures, but, guided by the racist and eugenics movements of the time, came up with a racial explanation for the Tutsi rule: their superiority was demonstrated by their lighter skin, aquiline nose, tall stature, etc. as opposed to the broad-nosed, darker and shorter Hutus. According to this new racial mythology, Hutu were Bantus while the Tutsi were part-Caucasian.

So they didn't intend to induce volatility, but they certainly weren't well-intentioned when they decided how to rule. As to direct economic gain, Rwanda has few resources and covers a small and landlocked territory, but it was well-suited for cash crop production of mainly coffee and some tea.

This is another important cause of the volatility of the country in itself. The post-colonial one-party dictatorship under Hutu rule relied almost entirely on a mix of foreign aid and profits from the coffee trade, and purposely kept the country rural and the population uneducated in order to maximize the exploitability of its only profitable natural resource.

When coffee prices plummeted in the late 1980ies, this caused serious problems for the regime as both the international and domestic communities as well as the exiled Tutsi community in Uganda mounted a serious opposition to the dictatorship. They were eventually forced to agree to political reforms, but hard-liners who were unwilling to relinquish their power seized control after the assassination (probably by the RPF - Tutsi rebels from Uganda) of the President, were able to use the years of anti-Tutsi propaganda, trained submission through dictatorship, and fears about the rebels from Uganda to organize the genocide.


There still is a lot more to it, and it is also interesting, but worrying to see many parallels between the current post-genocide Tutsi government and the pre-genocide Hutu government. I mostly based the above on academic sources, but more accessible reading I could recommend about the country and the region would include Dancing in the Glory of Monsters and anything by Prunier and Mamdani. Jared Diamond's Collapse has a chapter on Rwanda which focuses on the economic dimension; it's a bit controversial, but based on some very interesting research.

u/mayonesa · 7 pointsr/Republican

>can you please clarify your ideological position

Sure.

I'm a paleoconservative deep ecologist. This means I adhere to the oldest values of American conservatism and pair them with an interest in environmentalism through a more wholesome design of society.

I moderate /r/new_right because the new right ideas are closest to paleoconservatism in some ways. I tried to write a description of new_right that encompassed all of the ideas that the movement has tossed around.

Beyond that, I think politics is a matter of strategies and not collectivist moral decisions, am fond of libertarian-style free market strategies, and take interest in many things, hence the wide diversity of stuff that I post.

I've learned that on Reddit it's important to ask for people to clarify definitions before ever addressing any question using those terms. If you want me to answer any specific questions, we need a clear definition first agreed on by all parties.

I recommend the following books for anyone interesting in post-1970s conservatism beyond the neoconservative sphere:

u/eksploshionz · 5 pointsr/cscareerquestions

Honestly, if I try to present a comprehensive and detailed explanation, I won't be very convincing (plus I'm too lazy).

Shame is, the two books I usually recommend, so people don't have to rely on my imprecise blabber to decide what they think, are from french speaking authors and haven't been translated yet (don't think they will be, come to think of it).

How everything can collapse: A small manual of collapsology for the use of present generations : Why and how our civilization is prone to collapse. Pretty comprehensive analysis of the current situation.

The age of low tech. Towards a technically sustainable civilization : Focused on resources management and technology consumption. How we can prepare our society to technically adapt to this collapse.

You can still read Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (that one I haven't read yet) to better understand the similarities between past fallen civilizations and our own.

u/eruesso · 5 pointsr/pics

Worth mentioning that Greenland was far more green in the days of Erik the Red.

If you want to read more about how the viking settlers of greenland fared, I would recommend this book called Collapse.

u/4AM_Mooney_SoHo · 4 pointsr/Documentaries

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed is a great book by Jared Diamond (follow up to Guns Germs and Steel) dedicated to this subject of collapse, but it is based on older societies.

Part 1 of a video series on it

And here is the author's version

u/TJ_Marston · 4 pointsr/UnresolvedMysteries

I recommend the book Collapse by Jared Diamond if you are into lost civilizations and why they did not survive.

u/destroy_the_whore · 4 pointsr/The_Donald

> some people may have looked for someone who had a bit more experience writing or negotiating treaties specifically

Fellow liberal here. To help ease some of these concerns I'd point out that most of what an oil CEO does is negotiate with foreign governments for complicated agreements.

Also the oil industry is actually far ahead of other industries in terms of environmental protection in spite of what you might assume. Two books on the subject I highly recommend are The Quest (which is on Bill Gate's reading list and probably one of the single best books I've ever read) and Collapse.

u/DILGE · 3 pointsr/history

Jared Diamond wrote a terrific book about this subject called Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed in which he outlines the various times in history civilizations have completely collapsed and why. Societies such as the Maya, the Anasazi, the Vikings in Greenland and the people of Easter island. He also has some thoughts about the likelihood of a modern societal collapse and what we can do to prevent it. It's a fascinating book and I highly recommend it.

u/dadintech · 3 pointsr/pakistan

I personally think it's not religion that invoke people to kill Ahmadis or any other minority of the world. Just study any persecution in the world whether it's Rwanda, Sudan or North Korea. The main motive to kill is not religion. It's either economic or political reasons. I would highly recommend Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. We as a nation are either angry at our poverty or social conditions and then we try to blame it on the minorities.

u/aelendel · 2 pointsr/nature

Did you not notice that I said what the source is? Jared Diamond's Collapse?


You want chapter 15, starting on page 441, but it is a good idea to read the whole book.

http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Succeed-Revised-Edition/dp/0143117009

u/GadsdenPatriot1776 · 2 pointsr/collapse

Personally, I think the American Empire is declining. Sir John Glubb had a wonderful write up of this, and I have copied his conclusion below. The full PDF can be found here and it is only 27 pages long.

Glubb looked at eleven empires over the course of history. I copied a relevant summary from the end. The pdf is online here.

> As numerous points of interest have arisen in the course of this essay, I close with a brief summary, to refresh the reader’s mind.

> (a) We do not learn from history because our studies are brief and prejudiced.

> (b) In a surprising manner, 250 years emerges as the average length of national greatness.

> (c) This average has not varied for 3,000 years. Does it represent ten generations?

> (d) The stages of the rise and fall of great
nations seem to be:

> The Age of Pioneers (outburst)

> The Age of Conquests

> The Age of Commerce

> The Age of Affluence

> The Age of Intellect

> The Age of Decadence.

> (e) Decadence is marked by:

> Defensiveness

> Pessimism

> Materialism

> Frivolity

> An influx of foreigners

> The Welfare State

> A weakening of religion.

> (f) Decadence is due to:

> Too long a period of wealth and power

> Selfishness

> Love of money

> The loss of a sense of duty.

> (g) The life histories of great states are amazingly similar, and are due to internal factors.

> (h) Their falls are diverse, because they are largely the result of external causes.

> (i) History should be taught as the history of the human race, though of course with emphasis on the history of the student’s own country.

The real question is how technology will either speed up, slow down. or prevent the same thing from happening to America.

I also recommend the following books:

The Collapse of Complex Societies, By Joseph Tainter

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Succeed or Fail, By Jared Diamond

Overshoot: The Ecological Basis for Revolutionary Change

Finally, when it comes to survival information, I highly recommend www.survivalblog.com. To me, they are the best of the best.

I also would like to plug Radio Free Redoubt (podcast) as well as AmRRON (American Redoubt Radio Operator's Network).

u/[deleted] · 2 pointsr/AskReddit

Tariki. I love this book because it articulates a philosophy I already felt in my heart.

Guns, Germs, and Steel. A whirlwind, eye-opening take on world history and how we really got to where we are today. Useful for understanding your country's place in the world. It's counterpart, Collapse, is also a great read. It's about how societies fall.

Justice. I'm an unabashed liberal who has wrestled with libertarian ideas lately. I wanted to read and learn more about critiques of libertarian ideas and this is a great book, not just for that, but for the broader understanding of society, justice, and how a proper society should function.

Reunion. A beautiful love story from a male point of view. I strongly identify with the protagonist for some reason.

u/undercurrents · 2 pointsr/AskReddit

Any book by Mary Roach- her books are hilarious, random, and informative. I like Jon Krakauer's, Sarah Vowell's, and Bill Bryson's books as well.

Some of my favorites that I can think of offhand (as another poster mentioned, I loved Devil in the White City)

No Picnic on Mount Kenya

Guns, Germs, and Steel

Collapse

The Closing of the Western Mind

What is the What

A Long Way Gone

Alliance of Enemies

The Lucifer Effect

The World Without Us

What the Dog Saw

The God Delusion (you'd probably enjoy Richard Dawkins' other books as well if you like science)

One Down, One Dead

Lust for Life

Lost in Shangri-La

Endurance

True Story

Havana Nocturne

u/FrenchFuck · 1 pointr/AskWomen

I'm in between Collapse -Jared Diamond and I've been struggling for weeks to grasp Hegel's Spirit.

u/nocubir · 1 pointr/AskReddit

If you liked that, you will most likely very much enjoy "Collapse", by Jared Diamond.

u/mitreddit · 1 pointr/AskTrumpSupporters

if you are curious what destroys civilizations there's a book on the topic with some research / ideas on the topic https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Succeed-Revised/dp/0143117009

the thesis of that book is resource appetite exceeding supply causes a dramatic collapse.

so you favor a homogenous culture? ideologically or racially?

u/kandoras · 1 pointr/books

The (mostly complete) collection of works by Mary Roach. They're pop science, but great reads.

Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond. Both great books on how different cultures either became more or less powerful than others (how come large civilizations took longer to rise in sub-Saharan Africa than in Europe) and why some societies just failed completely (Easter Island).

Lies My Teacher Told Me. It shows a lot of details that a typical high school American History textbook just glosses over or ignores.

u/MisanthropicScott · 1 pointr/misanthropy

First, sorry for the incredibly slow reply. I was watching wildlife in Sri Lanka. I never post online before I go away due to the risk of burglary.

> Disasturbation is a fun term I'm not sure I've heard before.

Then I'm glad I shared. Please use it and keep the word alive.

>> Coincidentally, the same age at which I first witnessed worse than death
>
> A friend of mine has HIV and I worry about him at times. He's had at least one recent suicide attempt too. He's still pretty healthy but I think the reality of it all can crash down on him at times.

I'm sure it does all crash down on him quite often. It's a horrible disease even with the numerous treatments that have come out since my friend's death in 1990. I wish your friend many years of reasonable health, and when the time comes, as little pain as possible.

> Anyway...
>
> Not only am I worried about methane release, there's the issue of how air and water currents will change, and when there's no longer enough movement the whole world will be in a dire situation, but we'd probably already be gone by then. I hope. I don't want to see the oceans turned in to a salt crusted casserole.

You may want to read Under a Green Sky by Peter Ward. Don't worry. The oceans will instead turn to an anoxic soup of sulfur producing bacteria. This will start from the bottom up as the lack of the convection current causes the bottom-most waters to become anoxic (no, or little oxygen). The anoxic level will gradually rise since no oxygen is getting below the surface. Of course, without oxygen, there will not be fish, or at least very very few. Once the anoxic layer hits the surface (i.e. becomes the whole ocean), the hydrogen sulfide gas from the bacteria will enter the atmosphere in toxic quantities bringing the mass extinction already in progress to land in a huge way.

This is what caused the Permian/Triassic extinction event, the largest in the history of multicellular life on our planet.

> For me suicide isn't something I seek. I enjoy being alive, it's the only thing I've ever had. If there's no existence elsewhere I'm going to make the most of the existence afforded me. I want to live, it's our collectively self-destructive behavior that might force me to kill myself. Similar to you I've come to terms with the idea of controlling how I die.

Yeah. I think we have a lot in common here.

> I think the sad reality is that humanity's progress has essentially always been straight towards a wall. Over-fishing and over-hunting. Strip-mining and over-grazing. Many of the gifts of our brain which enabled our progress so quickly are probably hurting us now. If nothing else we've been failing to adjust for sustainability over growth for a LONG time.

We have at times reached some degree of harmony. But, it requires zero externalizations and the ability for each person to see the entire habitat available for humanity. I forget the name of the island mentioned in Collapse that managed to find a balance. They did completely engineer the island, leaving only trees beneficial to the humans in some way. But, since they used many trees, this came into balance as a functioning forest that also doubled as their farm. They also managed to limit their population very successfully. I'm not sure if this is ever explained.

Unfortunately, such cases are very rare in human history. Mostly, we eat out our resource base and move on. But, there is nowhere to which we can move on now. The island is earth. And, we're totally fucking trashing the place.

I personally always love hearing people talk about terraforming. Really?

Does anyone seriously believe we can successfully terraform another planet without first learning to keep this one terraformed? It came that way! And, we can't even keep it that way. But, we're supposed to be able to create a viable ecosystem on another planet.

R-i-i-i-ight.

> And that was the Unabomber's point.

My problems with him run deep. First and foremost, he's a fucking terrorist. I can't ever condone terrorism!!

This means that his name is such a red flag to me that my brain shuts down when I hear it. I'm unlikely to actively read anything by him.

Second, he's a Luddite. I don't believe, much as I'd like to, that it's at all realistic to throw away all of our technology and go back to hunting and gathering. And, even if we did, humanity was not sustainable then. The anthropocene is alternately viewed as starting with the Industrial Revolution or with the Agricultural Revolution.

But, it started much earlier.

As soon as we left Africa, our advanced weaponry (stone tools, atlatls, etc.) began causing mass extinctions everywhere we went. That can't be sustainable. So, would you roll back the use of stone tools? Would you also roll back our control of fire? How would you do this? Anyone who didn't agree would continue to use the technologies thrown away to kill off those who eschewed such technologies.

Third, the idea that killing off the brightest minds of our generation to leave the idiotic masses to continue to breed like rabbits can't possibly be the solution to anything.

Sorry. I am not about to read the nonsensical ravings of the lunatic mind.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this. I respect your view. But, I'm not going to read anything by Kaczynski.

> The man felt he was going to war for the sake of humanity. He possesses an astoundingly brilliant mind and for precisely that reason I think anyone should read what he wrote.

Brilliance does not necessarily produce sanity. He may be extremely intelligent and deluded. The two are not mutually exclusive.

At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, I must point out that there are still people talking about the brilliance of Hitler, usually his military genius rather than technological or scientific genius. But, still, the fact that someone possesses a powerful mind does not mean it is a powerful force for good.

> Here we are as misanthropes/misanthropists talking about inevitable disaster that we caused, maybe lots of murder was truly the hard pill that we needed to swallow. We spit it out though, at least when that murder was set to challenge the power of authority which does the very same thing with reckless abandon. Killing tons of people for one cause or another.

Maybe we're committing mass murder with every gallon of gasoline we burn or every ton of coal.

But, I'd prefer to reduce the human population via attrition. I don't think it will happen. I think we will experience a huge die-off caused by the natural laws to which we believe we're immune. But, I don't think murder at any level is the answer. In the 20th century, we had many of the greatest mass murders in history, the holocaust, Stalin's purges, Pol Pot, Rwanda, etc., etc., etc., and still the population climbs and climbs and climbs.

> But that's why I think we need a Hitlerian leader.

Now you're scaring me. And, not just because I would have been on the wrong side of the concentration camp fence.

>> Are you talking about stacking the living or the dead?
>
> Both work.
>
> I've been trying to think through my misanthropy and how to explain it to people "I hate people, not persons" or something along those lines. It's ultimately not that I can't be around people, I'm not exactly anti-social. I enjoy company and long conversations...

I generally just say exactly what's in my flair, "I Hate Our Species, Not All Individuals".

Though, I do often add that I do hate induhviduals. (Not a typo.)

> Whereas living simply in and among "nature" has always provided me with calm and relative happiness.

I wouldn't know how to live that way, but love traveling to people free (or mostly so) places to view wildlife. I describe this as feeling a oneness with the other sentiences with whom we share the planet, my distant and not-so-distant relatives.

> My creature comforts at this point are my laptop, my sound system and my kindle.

I like my creature comforts. I'm willing to pay more for renewable energy. And, I keep stuff much longer than anyone else I know, for example still using my 2002 20GB Archos which I've never replaced with an iPod. Obviously, music isn't a passion of mine if I can fit my entire collection in 20GB with room to spare.

u/vgn-s150 · 1 pointr/reddit.com

Great conversation starter.

You have peaked my interest. In your ethical point of view, who's money is your money?

As for the people of Haiti, do they work harder to survive? Has the developed world influenced their country more than say the Domicanan?

If you want a good book on this and many other things, check this out.

u/TheBB · 1 pointr/AskReddit
u/sourynori · 1 pointr/suggestmeabook

Have you read Collapse by Jared Diamond? If not, pick it up right now!


https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Succeed-Revised/dp/0143117009/

u/renatoathaydes · 1 pointr/programming

In the last 500 years, conflicts in Europe have been slowly decreasing, until the last 50 years or so when it rapidly became much smaller than in any of the previous centuries. This has corresponded with a slow but sure improvement in living conditions. Some countries in Europe haven't seen a war in over 200 years (Sweden hasn't participated in a war directly in 250 years). These are the most developed nations on Earth.

If you've read Jared Diamon's Collapse, you'll know that many civilizations have vanished from the Earth due to over-consuming what their environments could provide. Japan is an example of a country that managed, centuries ago, to avoid self-destruction though managing the few resources it had. I have, therefore, seen evidence that peace and environment awareness seem to be the hallmark of progress in the very long term, not war as it is erroneously believed, and that failure to remain peaceful or manage the environment well can cause the "collapse" of a civilization, no matter how advanced.

So, yes, it's logical that civilizations that manage to develop for many millenia without killing itself and its environment must have learned how to achieve progress peacefully and taking good care of its environment.

u/nicmos · 0 pointsr/politics

okay... read Jared Diamond's Collapse

it should keep you busy for a while.

u/PROPHYLACTIC_APPLE · 0 pointsr/dataisbeautiful

There were political economies in the iron ages. Kings didn't starve during famine but peasants did. If there were better social protections (such as good grain storage and distribution) peasants would not starve. The story of Joseph telling the pharaoh to save grain is an example of how famine could be alleviated in earlier times.

The academic literature on the history of disasters is very weak, but a few sources to back up my statements are:

Collapse: https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Succeed-Revised/dp/0143117009

and Greg Bankoff's work on disaster history: http://www2.hull.ac.uk/fass/history/our_staff/greg_bankoff.aspx

There's one other book on the history of disaster but I'm blanking on it.

Greg's article 'there's no such thing as natural disasters' is much more eloquent than any explanation I can give: http://hir.harvard.edu/article/?a=2694

u/heppdy · 0 pointsr/history

I would highly recommend checking out this book, if you can get it from a library or something Collapse

He talks about the collapse of all sorts of different cultures, societies...right now I'm reading about the decline of the Vikings, but there was a chapter before on ancient Polynesian cultures living on the Mangareva, Henderson, and Pitcairn islands. There was also a chapter on the Mayans. He covers things very well in detail, and all the different factors that contributed to their eventual collapse.