Part 5

Collapse. How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
by Jared Diamond, Ph.D.

(Page 5 of 6)

I have belabored this necessity for both good individual studies and good comparisons, because scholars practicing one approach too often belittle the contributions of the other approach. Specialists in the history of one society tend to dismiss comparisons as superficial, while those who compare tend to dismiss studies of single societies as hopelessly myopic and of limited value for understanding other societies. But we need both types of studies if we are to acquire reliable knowledge. In particular, it would be dangerous to generalize from one society, or even just to be confident about interpreting a single collapse. Only from the weight of evidence provided by a comparative study of many societies with different outcomes can one hope to reach convincing conclusions.

So that readers will have some advance idea where they are heading, here is how this book is organized. Its plan resembles a boa constrictor that has swallowed two very large sheep. That is, my discussions of the modern world and also of the past both consist of a disproportionately long account of one society, plus briefer accounts of four other societies.

We shall begin with the first large sheep. Part One comprises a single lengthy chapter (Chapter 1), on the environmental problems of southwestern Montana, where Huls Farm and the ranches of my friends the Hirschys (to whom this book is dedicated) are located. Montana has the advantage of being a modern First World society whose environmental and population problems are real but still relatively mild compared to those of most of the rest of the First World. Above all, I know many Montanans well, so that I can connect the policies of Montana society to the often-conflicting motivations of individual people. From that familiar perspective of Montana, we can more easily imagine what was happening in the remote past societies that initially strike us as exotic, and where we can only guess what motivated individual people.

Part Two begins with four briefer chapters on past societies that did collapse, arranged in a sequence of increasing complexity according to my five-point framework. Most of the past societies that I shall discuss in detail were small and peripherally located, and some were geographically bounded, or socially isolated, or in fragile environments. Lest the reader thereby be misled into concluding that they are poor models for familiar big modern societies, I should explain that I selected them for close consideration precisely because processes unfolded faster and reached more extreme outcomes in such small societies, making them especially clear illustrations. It is not the case that large central societies trading with neighbors and located in robust environments didn't collapse in the past and can't collapse today. One of the past societies that I do discuss in detail, the Maya, had a population of many millions or tens of millions, was located within one of the two most advanced cultural areas of the New World before European arrival (Mesoamerica), and traded with and was decisively influenced by other advanced societies in that area. I briefly summarize in the Further Readings section for Chapter 9 some of the many other famous past societies - Fertile Crescent societies, Angkor Wat, Harappan Indus Valley society, and others - that resembled the Maya in those respects, and to whose declines environmental factors contributed heavily.

Our first case study from the past, the history of Easter Island (Chapter 2), is as close as we can get to a "pure" ecological collapse, in this case due to total deforestation that led to war, overthrow of the elite and of the famous stone statues, and a massive population die-off. As far as we know, Easter's Polynesian society remained isolated after its initial founding, so that Easter's trajectory was uninfluenced by either enemies or friends. Nor do we have evidence of a role of climate change on Easter, though that could still emerge from future studies. Barry Rolett's and my comparative analysis helps us understand why Easter, of all Pacific islands, suffered such a severe collapse.

Pitcairn Island and Henderson Island (Chapter 3), also settled by Polynesians, offer examples of the effect of item four of my five-point framework: loss of support from neighboring friendly societies. Both Pitcairn and Henderson islands suffered local environmental damage, but the fatal blow came from the environmentally triggered collapse of their major trade partner. There were no known complicating effects of hostile neighbors or of climate change.

Thanks to an exceptionally detailed climate record reconstructed from tree rings, the Native American society of the Anasazi in the U.S. Southwest (Chapter 4) clearly illustrates the intersection of environmental damage and population growth with climate change (in this case, drought). Neither friendly or hostile neighbors, nor (except towards the end) warfare, appear to have been major factors in the Anasazi collapse.

No book on societal collapses would be complete without an account (Chapter 5) of the Maya, the most advanced Native American society and the quintessential romantic mystery of cities covered by jungle. As in the case of the Anasazi, the Maya illustrate the combined effects of environmental damage, population growth, and climate change without an essential role of friendly neighbors. Unlike the case with the Anasazi collapse, hostile neighbors were a major preoccupation of Maya cities already from an early stage. Among the societies discussed in Chapters 2 through 5, only the Maya offer us the advantage of a deciphered written record.

Norse Greenland (Chapters 6-8) offers us our most complex case of a prehistoric collapse, the one for which we have the most information (because it was a well-understood literate European society), and the one warranting the most extended discussion: the second sheep inside the boa constrictor. All five items in my five-point framework are well documented: environmental damage, climate change, loss of friendly contacts with Norway, rise of hostile contacts with the Inuit, and the political, economic, social, and cultural setting of the Greenland Norse. Greenland provides us with our closest approximation to a controlled experiment in collapses: two societies (Norse and Inuit) sharing the same island, but with very different cultures, such that one of those societies survived while the other was dying. Thus, Greenland history conveys the message that, even in a harsh environment, collapse isn't inevitable but depends on a society's choices. Comparisons are also possible between Norse Greenland and five other North Atlantic societies founded by Norse colonists, to help us understand why the Orkney Norse thrived while their Greenland cousins were succumbing. One of those five other Norse societies, Iceland, ranks as an outstanding success story of triumph over a fragile environment to achieve a high level of modern prosperity.

Part Two concludes (Chapter 9) with three more societies that (like Iceland) succeeded, as contrast cases for understanding societies that failed. While those three faced less severe environmental problems than Iceland or than most of those that failed, we shall see that there are two different paths to success: a bottom-up approach exemplified by Tikopia and the New Guinea highlands, and a top-down approach exemplified by Japan of the Tokugawa Era.

Part Three then returns to the modern world. Having already considered modern Montana in Chapter 2, we now take up four markedly different modern countries, the first two small and the latter two large or huge: a Third World disaster (Rwanda), a Third World survivor-so-far (the Dominican Republic), a Third World giant racing to catch up with the First World (China), and a First World society (Australia). Rwanda (Chapter 10) represents a Malthusian catastrophe happening under our eyes, an overpopulated land that collapsed in horrible bloodshed, as the Maya did in the past. Rwanda and neighboring Burundi are notorious for their Hutu/Tutsi ethnic violence, but we shall see that population growth, environmental damage, and climate change provided the dynamite for which ethnic violence was the fuse.

The Dominican Republic and Haiti (Chapter 11), sharing the island of Hispaniola, offer us a grim contrast, as did Norse and Inuit societies in Greenland. From decades of equally vile dictatorships, Haiti emerged as the modern New World's saddest basket case, while there are signs of hope in the Dominican Republic. Lest one suppose that this book preaches environmental determinism, the latter country illustrates what a big difference one person can make, especially if he or she is the country's leader.

China (Chapter 12) suffers from heavy doses of all 12 modern types of environmental problems. Because China is so huge in its economy, population, and area, China's environmental and economic impact is important not only for China's own people but also for the whole world. Australia (Chapter 13) is at the opposite extreme from Montana, as the First World society occupying the most fragile environment and experiencing the most severe environmental problems. As a result, it is also among the countries now considering the most radical restructuring of its society, in order to solve those problems.

This book's concluding section (Part Four) extracts practical lessons for us today. Chapter 14 asks the perplexing question arising for every past society that ended up destroying itself, and that will perplex future earthlings if we too end up destroying ourselves: how could a society fail to have seen the dangers that seem so clear to us in retrospect? Can we say that their end was the inhabitants' own fault, or that they were instead tragic victims of insoluble problems? How much past environmental damage was unintentional and imperceptible, and how much was perversely wrought by people acting in full awareness of the consequences? For instance, what were Easter Islanders saying as they cut down the last tree on their island? It turns out that group decision-making can be undone by a whole series of factors, beginning with failure to anticipate or perceive a problem, and proceeding through conflicts of interest that leave some members of the group to pursue goals good for themselves but bad for the rest of the group.

Chapter 15 considers the role of modern businesses, some of which are among the most environmentally destructive forces today, while others provide some of the most effective environmental protection. We shall examine why some (but only some) businesses find it in their interests to be protective, and what changes would be necessary before other businesses would find it in their interests to emulate them.

Finally, Chapter 16 summarizes the types of environmental dangers facing the modern world, the commonest objections raised against claims of their seriousness, and differences between environmental dangers today and those faced by past societies. A major difference has to do with globalization, which lies at the heart of the strongest reasons both for pessimism and for optimism about our ability to solve our current environmental problems. Globalization makes it impossible for modern societies to collapse in isolation, as did Easter Island and the Greenland Norse in the past. Any society in turmoil today, no matter how remote - think of Somalia and Afghanistan as examples - can cause trouble for prosperous societies on other continents, and is also subject to their influence (whether helpful or destabilizing). For the first time in history, we face the risk of a global decline. But we also are the first to enjoy the opportunity of learning quickly from developments in societies anywhere else in the world today, and from what has unfolded in societies at any time in the past. That's why I wrote this book.

© 2005 Penguin, a division of Penguin Putnam, used by permission.

About the Author

Jared Diamond is a professor of geography at the University of California, Los Angeles. He began his scientific career in physiology and expanded into evolutionary biology and biogeography. He has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. Among Dr. Diamond's many awards are the National Medal of Science, the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, Japan's Cosmos Prize, a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and the Lewis Thomas Prize honoring the Scientist as Poet, presented by Rockefeller University. He has published more than two hundred articles and his book Guns, Germs, and Steel, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.