Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed / Jared Diamond.
Material type:
TextPublication details: New York : Viking, 2005Description: xi, 575 p., [24] p. of plates : ill., maps ; 25 cmISBN: 0670033375Subject(s): Social history -- Case studies | Social change -- Case studies | Environmental policy -- Case studies | Civilization -- history | Social Conditions -- history | EnvironmentDDC classification: 304.2/8 LOC classification: HN13 | .D5 2005
Contents:
Summary: What caused some of the great civilizations of the past to collapse into ruin, and what can we learn from their fates? Diamond weaves an all-encompassing global thesis through a series of historical-cultural narratives. Moving from the prehistoric Polynesian culture of Easter Island to the formerly flourishing Native American civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya, the doomed medieval Viking colony on Greenland, and finally to the modern world, Diamond traces a pattern of catastrophe, spelling out what happens when we squander our resources, when we ignore the signals or environment gives us.
Prologue : a tale of two farms -- pt. 1: Modern Montana. Under Montana's big sky -- pt. 2: Past societies. Twilight at Easter -- The last people alive : Pitcairn and Henderson Islands -- The ancient ones : the Anasazi and their neighbors -- The Maya collapses -- The Viking prelude and fugues -- Norse Greenland's flowering -- Norse Greenland's end -- Opposite paths to success -- pt. 3: Modern societies. Malthus in Africa : Rwanda's genocide -- One island, two peoples, two histories : the Dominican Republic and Haiti -- China, lurching giant -- "Mining" Australia -- pt. 4: Practical lessons. Why do some societies make disastrous decisions? -- Big businesses and the environment : different conditions, different outcomes -- The world as a polder : what does it all mean to us today?
| Current library | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Martha's Vineyard High School Library | 304.28/DIAMOND (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | Available | 39844400132623 |
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| 304.2/KOL Under a white sky : the nature of the future / | 304.2/WAL The uninhabitable earth : life after warming / | 304.2/WEI The world without us / | 304.28/DIAMOND Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed / | 304.28/DIAMOND Collapse : | 304.8 ORT Walls and welcome mats : immigration and the American dream / | 304.873/COAN Ellis Island interviews : in their own words / |
Includes bibliographical references (p. [529]-560) and index.
Prologue : a tale of two farms -- pt. 1: Modern Montana. Under Montana's big sky -- pt. 2: Past societies. Twilight at Easter -- The last people alive : Pitcairn and Henderson Islands -- The ancient ones : the Anasazi and their neighbors -- The Maya collapses -- The Viking prelude and fugues -- Norse Greenland's flowering -- Norse Greenland's end -- Opposite paths to success -- pt. 3: Modern societies. Malthus in Africa : Rwanda's genocide -- One island, two peoples, two histories : the Dominican Republic and Haiti -- China, lurching giant -- "Mining" Australia -- pt. 4: Practical lessons. Why do some societies make disastrous decisions? -- Big businesses and the environment : different conditions, different outcomes -- The world as a polder : what does it all mean to us today?
What caused some of the great civilizations of the past to collapse into ruin, and what can we learn from their fates? Diamond weaves an all-encompassing global thesis through a series of historical-cultural narratives. Moving from the prehistoric Polynesian culture of Easter Island to the formerly flourishing Native American civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya, the doomed medieval Viking colony on Greenland, and finally to the modern world, Diamond traces a pattern of catastrophe, spelling out what happens when we squander our resources, when we ignore the signals or environment gives us.
Accelerated Reader AR UG 12.3 48.0 101906.
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