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Book Reviews on...

Collapse by Jared Diamond
Buy now Listen now

Collapse

by Jared Diamond

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed is Jared Diamond’s follow-up to the Pulitzer-Prize winning Guns, Germs and Steel.  It explores  the growing importance of environmental and ecological concerns to progressive US politics.

 

Recommendations from our site

“This is a warning that societies can do this. We, as a human society, could do this if we’re not careful. If we stretch the earth beyond its planetary limits, we could ruin the soil, we could ruin the ocean, we could ruin the air, and we could drain the ocean of fish. He sees evidence all around that we’re doing precisely that. He sees a limit to technology to solve our problems.” Read more...

The best books on GDP

David Pilling, Journalist

“I wanted to get a book on my list that is actually enjoyable to read, so not everything is quite so dry and dull as a narrative. I also wanted to include something that reflects the growing importance of environmental and ecological concerns to progressive politics in America. This is relatively new to the agenda – it’s only been in the last 30 to 35 years. But going forward, one of the most important things for progressives in the US, and all around the world, will be to prevent industrial economics from killing itself.” Read more...

Influences of a Progressive Blogger

Matthew Yglesias, Political Commentator

“I found Jared Diamond’s book Collapse more valuable in influencing my own thinking, because it shows the importance of culture in determining how humans deal with environmental threats. …….The author investigates the successes and failures of a number of civilisations which had reached a crisis point, and looks at why some succeeded and others hadn’t.” Read more...

The best books on Technology and Nature

Daniel Headrick, Historian

“Agricultural expansion is one of the chief reasons we’re in the middle of a period of mass species extinction.” Read more...

The best books on The Global Food Scandal

Tristram Stuart, Environmentalist

Other books by Jared Diamond

Upheaval by Jared Diamond

Upheaval
by Jared Diamond

Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond

Guns, Germs and Steel
by Jared Diamond

Our most recommended books

  • On Liberty
    by John Stuart Mill

  • War and Peace (Book)
    by Leo Tolstoy

  • Nineteen Eighty-Four
    by George Orwell

  • Middlemarch
    by George Eliot

  • The Confessions
    by Augustine (translated by Maria Boulding)

  • The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright

    The Looming Tower
    by Lawrence Wright

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