Collapse by Jared Diamond

Collapse by Jared Diamond

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?

In addition to teaching geography at UCLA, researching the birds of New Guinea and the Southwest Pacific Islands, and promoting the practice of sustainable environmental policies to leaders around the world, JARED DIAMOND is also the author of bestselling books about evolution and human history. Diamond studied physiology at Harvard and Cambridge, before narrowing his research to the cellular and molecular mechanisms of the gall bladder. It was on a summer trip to New Guinea in 1964, however, that he first began to carefully consider the questions that would intrigue him for the next half-century: why did New Guinea's extremely intelligent and resourceful indigenous peoples have no writing, chiefs, or steel tools? His Pulitzer Prize-winning Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies was an attempt to answer that question. Diamond is the author of several other books on geography and evolutionary biology, including Why is Sex Fun?: The Evolution of Human Sexuality and Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. The Third Chimpanzee for Young People is his first book adapted for younger audiences. Diamond lives in Los Angeles.

REBECCA STEFOFF specializes in writing nonfiction for young readers, with a focus on scientific, historical, and literary subjects. Her adaptations include A Young People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn and A Different Mirror for Young People by Ronald T. Takaki.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780143117001
ISBN 10	0143117009
Title	Collapse
Author	Jared Diamond
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Penguin Putnam Inc
Year published	2011-01-04
Number of pages	608
Prizes	Winner of Quill Award.
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable