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: Acceptable. DUST JACKET IS WORNED HAS SOME SOILING AND WEAR DUE TO AGE OF BOOK THE BOOK IS DIRTY AND STAIN ON THE INSIDE AS WELL AS THE OUTSIDE. read more
Description: Good. Clean interior, binding is tight, book and cover shows moderate wear and dirt, outer edges of the book shows minor surface dirt. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Viking Adult
Date Published: 2004-12-29
ISBN-13:9780670033379ISBN:0670033375
Description: Very Good. New York: Viking, 2004. Book club edition. Hardcover. 575 pp. Near fine, in near fine dust jacket. Almost no shelf wear. Unmarked. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Viking Adult
Date Published: 2004-12-29
ISBN-13:9780670033379ISBN:0670033375
Description: Very Good. New York: Viking, 2004. First edition. Hardcover. 575 pp. Near new. Just a few very small indentations along bottom board edges. In near fine, unclipped dust jacket. Very light edge wear to jacket in a few spots. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Penguin USA
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9780670033379ISBN:0670033375
Description: Hardcover. Used. May include moderately worn cover, writing, markings or slight discoloration. SKU: 23522694 All orders shipped within 1 business day. 14 day money back guarantee ISBN: 9780670033379 Used. May include moderately worn cover, writing, markings or slight discoloration. SKU: 23522694 All orders shipped within 1 business day. 14 day money back guarantee. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Books
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9780143036555ISBN:0143036556
Description: Very Good-Used in None as Issued jacket. / 9780143036555. Very good. Some shelfwear. Spine is creased from reading. No markings noticed. Binding is tight. read more
Edition: 1st edition, 1st issue, w/ 1 commencing numerical sequence
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Viking, NY
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9780670033379ISBN:0670033375
Description: Very fine, in excellent, priced dust jacket. No chips, no tears. Solid, sound text block has no writing, no marginalia, no highlighting, no bookplates, etc.; no remainder marks, NOT ex-library; NOT BC ed. 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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