MB Civic

“Collapse” by Jared Diamond

Daimond puts civilizations that died off under a microscope – Easter Island, the Vikings’ Greenland colony, the Anasazi of the American Southwest, others – to examine the different factors that went into their “collapse” .. depleted resources, failure to adapt both culturally and strategically. He draws an apt analogy to our own predicament [cough..OIL..cough]

One of the sobering moments in this book is when he points out that the world can’t support many more “first world” economies, at least as such economies currently exist. The modernization of China and India will soon impact us all in ways hard to predict… Puts our foreign policy in a bit more perspective though doesn’t for me assuage the guilt of past crimes or justify the U.S. and the rest of the developed world’s continuing oppression of 3rd world countries through the IMF, WTO, NAFTA, CAFTA et al.

Review by Mike Blaxill