Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed - Jared Diamond

[Bern]

One of those books I've always meant to read - still got to get to Guns, Germs & Steel - but I found it hard going from the off.

There's no question it's well researched and argued - I found the section on Easter Island fascinating - but it labours sometimes. Like those cable shows that have to repeat the premise of the show after every ad break.

Jared Diamond looks at societies that have failed and extrapolates the cause of their demise. Clearly, we fit many of the criteria, not least a fatalist attitude to the affect of our indulgence. We're the band on the Titanic. Diamond wonders what the Easter Islander who cut down the last tree might have said.

It's not all doom and gloom. The book also looks at successful societies - those that have survived by adapting to their environment - but my priority is to move on to another book.

[Lindach]

This doesn't sound like the kind of book to take away on holidays. Too much doom and gloom from the sound of it but an important message never the less.

[Bern]

He pulls together a lot of research from many disciplines - so you get some great stories about the colonists of Iceland and Greenland, for example. Definitely worth a read, but yeah maybe not on the beach.

[Thursday Mens reading group]

Hi

always meant to read this..it is not light reading..but its not meant to be..will post a review when I do!