Collapse

By Jared Diamond, Ricardo García Pérez

Subjects: Environmental degradation, Milieufactoren, Ecología humana, Nature, effect of human beings on, Sociology, Natürliche Ressourcen, Civilisation, Anthropology, Social history, Raubbau, Culturen, Ecologie humaine, Hombre, Etudes de cas, Effect of human beings on, Civilisations, Case studies, Nonfiction, Civilization, history, Évolution, Développement économique et social, Influencia sobre la naturaleza, Reading Level-Grade 12, Nature, Untergang, Société, Umweltkrise, Reading Level-Grade 9, Weltproblematik, Niedergang, Environnement, Gesellschaft, Histoire, Long Now Manual for Civilization, Société (milieu humain), Geschichte, Estudio de casos, Civilization, Environment, Cas, Études de, World history, Politique gouvernementale, Changement social, Écologie humaine, Zivilisation, Futur, Cambio social, Historia social, Politique de l'environnement, Reading Level-Grade 11, Umweltschaden, Théorie, Études de cas, Verval (geschiedenis), Social Conditions, Análisis de casos, Disparition, Effets de l'homme, History, Reading Level-Grade 10, Human ecology, Culture, Social & Cultural History, Social change, Histoire sociale, Política ambiental, Volk, Environmental policy, Philosophie, Klimaänderung

Description: "In his Pulitzer Prize-winning 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, 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?" "As in Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond weaves an all-encompassing global thesis through a series of historical-cultural narratives. Moving from the prehistoric Polynesian culture on 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 fundamental pattern of catastrophe, spelling out what happens when we squander our resources, when we ignore the signals our environment gives us, and when we reproduce too fast or cut down too many trees. Environmental damage, climate change, rapid population growth, unstable trade partners, and pressure from enemies were all factors in the demise of the doomed societies, but other societies found solutions to those same problems and persisted."--BOOK JACKET