last night i finished reading Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.
i wanted to read it for a while, since jared diamond previous book, Guns, Germs and Steel was one of the best and most enlightening book i ever read. so i came with great expectations..
collapse is looking into the collapse of past civilizations and tries to analyze the factors that contributed to their demise. it then discusses current civilizations with chapters dedicated to Australia and China. towards the end it tries to indentify the parallels between past and present civilizations, identifying the major risks we face today and the hope of dealing with these risks.
the main focus is analysis of the environmental impact (not surprisingly if you have read past works of Jared Diamond), and specifically the affects of human behavior on the environment (deforesting, overfishing, etc.).
though he is trying to end on a positive note, the book is very depressing. it seems humanity has a real chance to screw things up badly over the next century… it basically up to us to decide how we deal with these threats (either act upon or ignore them), which means i am not optimistic.
the book could be shorter, but i learned new things on almost every page so it's worth it.
