No one knows why they allowed their environment to deteriorate to the point where they were reduced to starvation. Even so, the Anasazi lasted at Chaco for more than five hundred years.

They also built irrigation ditches, but the dry climate turned the ditches into deep gulches where the water flowed too far down to be used for agriculture. For example, the Anasazi of Chaco Canyon deforested their surroundings, although they needed the pinon nuts for food and the wood for firewood and construction. By the end of his studies, he has discovered five explanatory variablesenvironmental damage, yes, but also climate change, hostile neighbors, weakened trade partners, and societys response.Ĭertainly, environmental damage was a big factor in all the collapses Diamond describes, and much of that damage was inflicted by the groups themselves. Thus, the book moves from mystery to unreality.ĭiamond admits that when he started his research, I naively thought that the book would just be about environmental damage (p. What is worse, Diamond chooses to apply his fragilely spun explanations to warding off environmental collapse in the future. Diamond thinks he can explain why these civilizations vanished, even though in most cases we simply do not know enough about them to come to any conclusion. Wrapped around this engrossing story, however, is an attempt to do much more than weave together what is known about these civilizations and their demise. Jared Diamondbiologist, anthropologist, and author of the stunning book Guns, Germs, and Steelshould be the perfect guide to them. Many of us have wondered for years about these cultures. Unlike the ancient civilizations of Greece or Rome, most of Diamonds lost cultures were small and isolated, but their names are familiar to most of us: the Anasazi who lived in Chaco Canyon in what is now New Mexico the residents of Easter Island in the Pacific, who left giant, broken, humanlike statues and the Vikings, who settled Greenland when the climate was warmer but died out when it grew colder.

The interior book is an effort to marshal the facts surrounding the disappearances of past civilizations known for the most part by the tantalizing relics they left behind. Scott AtlasĪ fascinating book lies within the nearly six hundred pages of Jared Diamonds Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Single Issues of The Independent Review.

Podcast: Independent Outlook / Conversations.

International Economics and Development.

Collapse by Jared Diamond