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[Books 2007] Collapse
Mar. 15th, 2007 06:54 pm19. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond
This is one of those rare books that was reviewed in both New Scientist and the history press (as well as the weekend papers, presumably) when it was published. The reviews from all camps distilled to "interesting, but flawed".
I'm not too sure about the flaws - I almost had him on not mentioning the black death as a contributory factor to the demise of Viking Greenland, but he mentioned it at nearly the end of the chapter. I seem to remember there being some quibbles about his treatment of the decline of Mayan civilization, but I'm not as up to date with the current thinking on that as I'd like to be.
I was particularly interested by the chapter examining the different paths of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, the two halves of the island of Hispaniola. Diamond says that most international development agencies say that Haiti is beyond help and absolutely doomed; and while I'm aware that Haiti is the poorest country in the New World and a bit about its recent history, but that seems a bit harsh.
The chapter on Rwanda was interesting, having recently read Shake Hands with the Devil.
Overall, not bad.
This is one of those rare books that was reviewed in both New Scientist and the history press (as well as the weekend papers, presumably) when it was published. The reviews from all camps distilled to "interesting, but flawed".
I'm not too sure about the flaws - I almost had him on not mentioning the black death as a contributory factor to the demise of Viking Greenland, but he mentioned it at nearly the end of the chapter. I seem to remember there being some quibbles about his treatment of the decline of Mayan civilization, but I'm not as up to date with the current thinking on that as I'd like to be.
I was particularly interested by the chapter examining the different paths of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, the two halves of the island of Hispaniola. Diamond says that most international development agencies say that Haiti is beyond help and absolutely doomed; and while I'm aware that Haiti is the poorest country in the New World and a bit about its recent history, but that seems a bit harsh.
The chapter on Rwanda was interesting, having recently read Shake Hands with the Devil.
Overall, not bad.
