Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed - Book Report/Review Example

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed The earthquake at the Indian Ocean and the tsunami provides a remindance of the power of the natural forces. This disasters have nothing to do with the ability of mankind to control and influence natural events. However, the impacts of these disasters made mankind to develop policies that will help preserve life, in the event of an occurrence of a disaster of such kind of a magnitude. Jared Diamond, in his book entitled collapse manages to use the elemental power of nature as his main theme (Diamond, 13). He fills the book, with stories of different cultural practices and groups, from all over the world. These cultures are linked by the inquiry of diamond on why the cultural values of these societies collapsed, while other cultural values which faced the same challengers survived. An example of cultures that managed to collapse are the ancient Mayan civilization cultures, and the cultural values of the people of the Eastern Island. In his inquiry, Diamond agrees that he started it on the assumption that the physical abuse of these peoples environment was the main cause of an erosion of their cultural believes. That is cutting down of trees, an aspect referred to as ecocide (Diamond, 11). However, these assumptions were wrong. This is because there were so many factors that led to the collapse or near collapse of the cultural values and practices of various groups around the world. These factors include the changes in climate, trade practices, and being surrounded by hostile neighbors, etc. Diamond finds it difficult to explain the objectives of his book in explaining the scenarios that led to the collapse or near collapse of certain cultural practices and values. His desire of trying to explain his points enables him to give a detailed narrative of certain cultural practices. This makes him to move out of his these statements, and as a result he manages to explain issues that are irrelevant to the theme of his book and to his theses statement. Diamond manages to use an extra-ordinary diversity in his case studies. He talks of the cultural practices of New Guinea, the Henderson Islands, the Pitcairn Islands, the cultural practices of the Mayans, the Rwandese, the Chinese, the people of Haiti, and the cultural practices of people living in the South West region of United States. In developing these case studies, the starting point of Diamond is on the causes of the collapse in the cultural practices of the people of the Eastern Islands. He denotes that the collapse of their cultural practices emanated from their over exploitation of their own natural resources. On this basis, Diamond tries to inform the reader on the negative consequences of extensive use of natural resources (Diamond, 22). These assertions might be true, and this is because the environment shapes the cultural perceptions of individuals. For example, one of the cultural practices of the American Indians was game hunting. If they destroyed the forests by cutting trees for energy, then there won’t be any habitat for the animals, as a result, there won’t be any hunting practices. Diamond, further tries to answer questions such as how the specific collapse happened? What were the thoughts of the Easter Islands when they were cutting down the last of trees? What was their intention while cutting down the trees? Diamond tries to answer this question in his final third part of the book. The explanations that he gives are centered on the on the ecological crisis that these cultures pass through, and failures to acknowledge the future consequences of these actions. Diamond further goes on to denote that the reasons as to why these people kept on destroying their environments was their inability to discern the environmental trends of their time. An example is the inconsistencies of rainfall within a season (Diamond, 31). These people are unable to explain the reasons of these behaviors, and still they continue to engage in ecocide activities. In this book, there is a whole chapter that examines the various activities mining, oil and forestry industries. He denotes that these companies play a great role in eroding the environment, but various governments still condone their practices. In his opinion, policy makers should ban these companies from operating. However, I disagree with this assertion. This is because these companies are a great source for the government. All that the government needs to do is to enact policies that will ensure the protection of the environment, and put in place some enforcement mechanisms that will ensure these companies adhere to the policies created. From this book, we can learn that the main cause of the environmental destruction is greed. This is because people are concerned about satisfying their immediate needs, as opposed to establishing mechanisms that will satisfy their long term needs. For instance, the negative causes of the destruction of an environment will be felt after many years. It is possible that the people responsible for destroying the environment will be dead at the time, and as such, they will not feel its effect (Diamond, 42). This is pure greed and selfishness, and as such, I agree with Diamond. In concluding his analysis, Diamond gives an example of Netherlands. A country that has managed to preserve its environment; and as such, the country has managed to maintain the cultural practices of its people. In my own opinion, Diamond is right in his assertions. It is important to denote that a fifth of Netherlands land mass is below the sea level. On this basis therefore, the environment of Netherlands is under the protection of dyke and the government policies. Diamond further ends his arguments by denoting that it is important for mankind to be increasingly aware on the environmental changes on their surroundings. This will help in mitigating the occurrences of environmental disasters such as drought and famine. These assertions are correct. In my opinion, the best method of protecting the environment is increasing awareness to the society on the importance of environmental conservation. This is a well researched book by Diamond, however, he fails to identify and explain the other cause of cultural collapse such as intermarriages and globalization. Works Cited: Diamond, Jared M.. Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed. New York: Viking, 2005. Print. Read More