Collapse, By Jared Diamond

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr is a novel filled with despair, death, aspirations, fear, and fearlessness. It revolves around WWII, in Nazi Germany, the concentration young camps for boy soldiers, and two teenagers who struggle throughout their period of life as well as the people around them. The main lynchpins of this book are Marie-Laure, and Werner, they go in and out of trials and tribulations as well as happiness. Terror is one of the most important things to a human because they are fearful. The citizens of Nazi Germany were in a constant state of unknowing, that’s the affect the War had, the fear of not knowing if their young boy is going to get sent to a concentration camp with Hitler. The citizens of Nazi Germany has been petrified when Hitler made his grand appearance, then the citizens warmed up to him.

A crucial concept throughout history is the tendency of societies to fall apart completely (Diamond 684). Today, the United States, relying on technology to remedy the ills of the world, is a great deal like the Mayan Society. Diamond explains the dangerous misconceptions that Mayan society and other civilizations did not consider in their early development.

The Mayans were a unique civilization with the most sophistication in mesoamerica (1800 BC-250 AD). In this civilization, the major cities include Tikal and Chichen Itza, however independent city-states are run by, kings. Mayans had a polytheistic religion where they believed in afterlife. In addition, Mayans built temples, pyramids for sacrifices, and bloodletting. Yet, they were excellent astronomers. Here priests charted movements of planets, moon, and sun. Also, these distinctive people created calendars, developed a number system, and glyphic writing. Withal their economy was based on agriculture and trade. Nevertheless, what caused this great civilization to collapse? While analyzing the theories, I believe this civilization collapsed, due to: warfare, disease, famine, and disaster/ environmental change.

COLLAPSE by Jared Diamond attempts to answer the question, “What caused some of the great civilizations of the past to collapse into ruin, and what can we learn from their fates?”

In the book, “ Reign of Error” by Diane Ravitch, Published on September 17th, 2017 the theme is, Educating people about what’s really wrong with our education system. We seem to have this misconception that all kids who are the same age should be on the same standard of intelligence. What some do not realize is that not all kids learn at the same pace or the same way. In the chapter “ The Facts about Teachers and Test Scores” Ravitch says, “ Educators say that every child can learn, but they understand that children learn at different rates and that some inevitably learn more than others” (Ravitch, 99), she is saying that some do not acknowledge that every child and person is different. Everyone is constantly moving at a different pace,

In author Jared Diamonds essay: “The Last Americans: Environmental Collapse and the end of civilization,” he discusses the events that led to the ruining of ancient civilizations like the Mayans, due to the “ cultural attitudes of those in power,” and their inability to understand and find solutions for their environmental problems. Diamonds essay begins by describing a conventional Mayan society and their native habitat which was mainly composed of limestone and other porous sediments which created numerous difficulties for the Mayans especially as they were plagued with erratic weather changes that alternated between dry seasons

The Mayans were an advanced civilization that had made great accomplishments. They had an advanced culture with gods and plenty of sacrifices to them. They also invented the basis of basketball, writing, and herbal medicines. Their cities were remarkable and they had schools, ball courts, shops, and hospitals too. The Mayans lived for a very peaceful time, until the Spanish came.They started to take down the Mayan civilization. the Spanish burned their codices and destroyed the basis of Mayan culture. Many Mayans died and the rest of them lived in small villages scattered around Mexico. The once inhabited land of the Mayans and their cities were just now overgrown

The ancient Mayan civilization was highly advanced for its time. It was responsible for many advances in astronomy, written language, and agriculture. The Mayans also had a very developed system of social hierarchy. They were considered the most advanced civilization in the New World for the way they were able to use the surrounding geography to their advantage. By analyzing the environment of the Mayan world and its effect on the economic, social, and political aspects of this mighty culture, the reader can conclude that the ancient Mayans were today’s equivalent of a major world power.

The essay will explain to the readers about the Mayan people and their cultures. The biggest part of this essay, we will be talking about the decline and their crucial extinction, and a more likely reasoning for the drastic decline, of such an astonishing culture than had been head of it time. It is hard to belief that no one has ever came up with a solution of why the Mayan were wipe out from this world.

History constantly inundates our knowledge of advanced civilizations of yester- worlds such as the great Mayan civilization. Yet it has taken researchers a lot of time trying to ravel the mystery that surrounds the sudden and abrupt disappearance of a great civilization. Perchance, how could such an advanced society disappear without bequeathing the world with any tangible evidence of their downfall? Was its sudden collapse a sign of cataclysm, or abandonment as a result of political upheavals? Researchers and scholars continue to wonder what exactly might have happened to the impeccable Mayan civilization.

Mayan civilization began long before Christopher Columbus, “ founded the new world”, The Mayan civilization persisted for more than 1,000 years, That is over twice as long as America, just think that a society formed by people some see as primitive expanded into a thriving society which lasted over 1,000 years. This also means that in 1,000 years there were factors slowly leading to the Mayans demise. Archaeologists and other scientists each have their own beliefs for how the Mayan society disappeared. Some hypothesis it was brought upon by a drought, others say it was due to a collapse in their socio-political structure. There are also some who believe that either war or disease was the causing factor. There could even be a mixture of these four factors which lead the Mayans to their doom. Each have their foundation and scientific evidence which supports the individual idea. I will cover each factor separately and then go on to state that the most logical explanation for the decline in Mayan society would be a drought that occurred simultaneously with the decline of Mayan society.

In 1931, a theory was proposed that the collapse of the Southern Mayan Lowlands was due to the erosion of soil, scarcity of land, encroachment of grasses, climate, etcetera …(AOC) This theory more or less deals with the idea that the Mayan collapsed because of agricultural problems and environmental degradation. When the Classic Mayan civilization started it was able to sustain itself, but when the population started to expand there was simply not enough agriculture to support the amount of people living within the community, “Cultural complexity is limited by environmental potential, especially for agriculture.”(AOC) When the society tried to expand and support the larger population they “over shot there limits of the environment”(AOC) and could not support themselves

The Book “Give Me Truth” by Bill Condon, is my chosen book for the wide reading assessment task. I have selected this book for several reasons. One reason why I choose this book was simply because the story was appealing to me. After reading the blurb which provided a tiny insight of the plot, I was captivated by the novel due to the fact that I could relate to the plot in terms of the main complication faced by the characters, furthermore I have chosen this book because of the cover, which I found unique and appealing. The cover of the book was very simple but eye-catching with the utilisation of a large font for the title of the book and a bright yellow background. I was instantly curious about the book and I was keen to read the book, moreover,

The journal article by James Aimers and Jared Diamond’s TED presentation both acknowledge that multiple factors led to the decline of the Mayan empire such as climate change, wars, and socio-economic factors. Where Diamond and Aimers differ is their description of the rapidity of the collapse of the Maya. Jared Diamond uses the example of the Maya of the Yucatan whose society collapsed in the early 800’s quickly in the span of decades, directly after a period of great growth and prosperity. Diamond uses this single example of rapid decline for the Maya while the Aimers reading describes the gradual migration of some Maya people away from cities and established infrastructure. James Aimers also describes that the collapse of society may not necessarily be the destruction of tradition and the looting of valuables for the spoils of war but also the “gradual decline in complexity of constructions, writing and discontinuation of the Long Count for the Maya” (Aimers, 2007) which indicates a slower evolution of society rather than a sudden disruption.

What lead to the mayan culture downfall?, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nqURr0mP6CjR7McBR8-3bgUznN5JPfw0H7HMhpnvztM/edit#heading=h.gu0ltzrc7l8x, Article step 30 by Martin 8.1, 02-04-2016