Horizon Information Portal

e-branch

Home

My Account/Renew Loans

Find Magazine Articles & more

Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed / Jared Diamond ; with a new afterword.

by Diamond, Jared M.

View full image

Penguin Books, 2011.

Social history -- Case studies.

Social change -- Case studies.

Environmental policy -- Case studies.

9780143117001 (pbk)

xii, 589 p., 24 unnumbered p. of plates : ill., maps ; 22 cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 543-574) and index.

"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 the conditions for the collapse of civilization 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. As in Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond traces the fundamental pattern of catastrophe, and weaves an all-encompassing global thesis through a series of fascinating historical-cultural narratives. Collapse moves 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. Similar problems face us today and have already brought disaster to Rwanda and Haiti, even as China and Australia are trying to cope in innovative ways. Despite our own society’s apparently inexhaustible wealth and unrivaled political power, ominous warning signs have begun to emerge even in ecologically robust areas like Montana. 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?"--Publisher.

Horizon Information Portal 3.24_8902M

© 2001-2013 SirsiDynix All rights reserved.

Horizon Information Portal