Collapse

Collapse
How Societies Chose to Fail or Succeed
Author: Jared Diamond

Like his "Guns, Germs, and Steel", Jared Diamond's Collapse is also a great book worth reading. In high school, I learned the words "soil erosion" and "salinization". With so many examples in this book, I begin to understand the real meaning of these words.

Diamond's explainations about the earlier collapsed societies including Easter Island, Maya, Greenland's Norse are very convincing. Some of myths in my minds are replaced with scientific facts and reasoning.

His Malthusian explaination of Rwanda's genocide is also insightful. I guess that some social tensions in the middle of Qing Dynasty are also come from the population explosion.

The chapter about "mining" Austrilia is also very informative. Austrilia is a great country. I had never thought that it has so many environmental issues.

I just don't like his hostile tone towards China. Diamond should come to visit China and the trip could help him to improve his book.