Book - Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, by Jared Diamond

Hardback, 575 pages, published 2005. 24 pages of black-and-white photographic plates. This is in excellent used condition. Very minor scuffing on the dust jacket and one blank page is missing from the front. Otherwise, no dog-ears, no writing, no highlights, no tears. Spine is in solid shape. "What makes one environment more fragile than another? Why do some societies, but not others, plunge into self-destruction? Huge in scope, clear and passionate in style, Collapse is an essential book of our time, raising the urgent question: How can our world best avoid destroying itself? Through a series of fascinating historical-cultural narratives, Jared Diamond traces the fundamental pattern of catastrophe. Environmental damage, climate change, globalization, rapid population growth, and destructive political dynamics have all been factors in the demise of societies through history, but some societies found solutions and persisted. This book moves from the Polynesian cultures on Easter Island, to the flourishing American civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya, to the doomed Viking colony on Greenland. Similar problems face us today but there is still hope, as some countries and regions try to cope in innovative ways." I also have a listing for "Guns, Germs, and Steel" for which Diamond was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Diamond's work is incredibly well-researched and documented. My husband and I are just downsizing, so these excellent books will need new homes. 💖