The End Of The World By Jared Diamond: The Collapse Of Historical Societies

In this essay it will explore and discuss in particular, the key initial drivers, major changes in its structure over its life, the reasons caused its demise, the social impact of its demised including internally and externally, and the lessons learned for all factors mentioned above.

In the prologue of “Collapse”, Jared Diamond claims that his previous book “Guns, Germs, and Steel” focused on the buildup of societies over the last 13,000 years and his present book ‘Collapse” focuses on the factors that cause failure and survival in civilizations all across the world2.” Diamond analyzes the breakdown of all societies through a unique scale called the five-point framework. This framework considers environmental damage, climate change, hostile neighbors, friendly trade partners, and most importantly society’s response to its environmental problems. Every society he studies he applies this framework to determine a possible flaw in the collapse of the society. The novel starts with Montana’s current environmental problems and evaluates societies as ancient as the Mayans and as recent as Modern China.

Jared Diamond is a world renowned scientist, author, Pulitzer Prize winner, and currently a geography professor at UCLA. Of his six books published, we will be looking at the last chapter of his fourth book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. In this book Diamond utilizes the comparative method to find resemblance in past societal collapses with our current society. In the chapter entitled, "The World as Polder: What Does it Mean to Us Today," Diamond points out that there are indeed many parallels between past and present societies and that our modern day society is currently on a path of self destruction , through examples such as globalization and the interdependency of each country.

From 600 BCE to 600 BC, many empires across the globe saw expansive and explosive growth. Many other empires collapsed during this time.What separated those that were on the way up and those on the way down was their ability to control their empires. While there are many examples of collapsing empires being unable to exert control of their territories, the examples center around 3 general reasons. These 3 reasons of collapse are economic, political and environmental.

Civilizations are born, reach their potential under extraordinary leaders, and over time lose their vitality and strength. The remarkable feature in this cycle is that new civilizations emerge out of there fallen leaders, regenerated by new leaders and by outside cultural

After reading The World until Yesterday by Jared Diamond, the first chapter Epilogue: At another Airport explains Diamond emotional and social transition from his experience in New Guinea and to his adjustment to his home in Los Angeles. Diamond compares and contrasts the advantages between modern and traditional societies. Traditional societies and small-scale societies are small populations who were derived from indigenous cultural practices subsisting by the hunting-gathering or herding or by farming and have transformed to a limited degree through contact of industrial societies or modern societies (Diamond, 6). Unlike traditional societies, Modern societies also known as “Westernized” societies practice the industrial mode of production

The theory of degeneration sparked public discourse and fear of falling civilization. Julia Reid says the fin de siècle was

Imagine a world where there were no problems, and everyone is happy. Few societies have not even been close to being this perfect. Great societies fail due to weak security systems, poverty, and inequality. The failed societies of Ancient Rome, Africa, and the dystopian novel Divergent by Veronica Roth, are all examples of great societies failing because of these three reasons.

“America’s ‘Oh Sh*t!’ Moment”, written by Niall Ferguson, a historian who teaches at Harvard University, in 2011, explores why civilizations collapse, and how America can avoid this. He does not focus only on America, but many civilizations in the past that have collapsed. Niall Ferguson is the author of Civilization: The West and The Rest. The article is creatively and cleverly written using the metaphor of modern technology to describe the way in which the societal collapse occurs. This shows that the article was written for adults who are highly educated and understand and relate to technology. The article discusses the possibilities of what complete collapse would look like in American society. I believe the author successfully

During the period of 600 BCE to 600 CE there was much political unrest throughout the world. This essay will analyze the reason for collapse of once powerful ancient empires by scrutinizing the rulers who led them. By looking at the circumstances of a fallen empire, a person can asses that the neglect of government officials, stressed with vast war expenses, who levy high taxes that lead to peasant uprisings, is the circular chain of events that will always eventually crumble a weak empire. And as specific as they may seem, these crises developed many a time.

The word “collapse” has a number of connotations associated with it. Some view it exclusively the degradation of societies of the highest order. Others see it as the complete disintegration of economic prospects and commerce. Some even think of it political ruin with the demise of states and ruling factions that maintain order. The most general definition for collapse can includes elements from these three viewpoints. American anthropologist and historian Joseph A. Tainter is best known for his writings on societal collapses. In 1988 he published his most widely recognized work, The Collapse of Complex Societies.

Every developing and already developed nation goes through its ups and downs within its political, social, and economic atmosphere. An infamous example could be during Hitler’s reign in Germany, another example could be during the early 1900s into the time of the Red Scare where only the élite few lived well off while the rest of the population did not compare as well. During this time in the United States, an idea known as “the system” came about. “The system” is infamously known to affect many lives such as Anne Elizabeth and Ben Compton from Dos Passos’s trilogy, and Randolph Bourne.

Reading “Railey and Reycraft,” I learned that the several features listed by Renefew show that there are cases of collapse in state and prestate societies. Never knew that some cases of contrary to assumption don’t really imply regional abandonment and etc. Collapse is splits into internal and external divisions, I never knew that can put collapse into two divisions; I thought it was just one meaning to it. Also, collapse external factors are environmental disasters can bring out the collapse of a complex society.

What is collapse? How do we define it? We must first find the meaning behind this before we go and start describing how collapse happened. This way, people know what they are reading about and how to interpret it. The archeologist J.A. Tainter (1990) says “A society has collapsed when it displays a rapid, significant loss of an established level of sociopolitical complexity.” Now this may seem like a straightforward statement, but is it really? When he says rapid, what is considered to be a rapid speed? Would this be 5 years,

Imagine a world with overbearing leaders, poverty, and social judgements? In different societies there are many different reasons that they could fall. Social injustice, corrupt government, and poverty are some of the different reasons that will be written about. In Divergent, Rome and Nazi,Germany there were similar downfalls between all of the societies. There are many ways for different societies to fall; social injustice, corrupt government, and poverty.