Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Suceed
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs and Steel examines the downfall of some of history’s greatest civilizations. In his million-copy bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond examined how and why Western civilizations developed the technologies and immunities that allowed them to dominate much of the world. Now in this brilliant companion volume, Diamond probes the other side of the equation: What caused some of the great civilizations of the past to collapse into ruin, and what can we learn from their fates? Moving from the Polynesian cultures on Easter Island to the flourishing American civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya and finally to the doomed Viking colony on Greenland, Diamond traces the fundamental pattern of catastrophe. Environmental damage, climate change, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were all factors in the demise of these societies, but other societies found solutions and persisted. Brilliant, illuminating, and immensely absorbing, Collapse is destined to take its place as one of the essential books of our time, raising the urgent question: How can our world best avoid committing ecological suicide?
Dr. Jared Diamond is a professor of geography at the University of California, Los Angeles. Among Dr. Diamond’s many awards are the National Medal of Science, the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, and a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. Guns, Germs, and Steel won the Pulitzer Prize and spent over a year on the New York Times bestseller list. The Third Chimpanzee won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Book signing to follow lecture.
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