Planet Bookworm

Collapse ======== In a follow-up book to his Pulitzer Prize-winning work Guns, Germs and Steel, naturalist and geographer Jared Diamond looks into the reasons why civilisations fail, notable examples being the Maya, the Easter Islanders and the medieval Norse settlers in Greenland. ================================================================================ In Collapse, Jared Diamond addresses some of the mysteries which have puzzled mankind for centuries. Why is it that some human societies across the globe have abruptly failed and vanished, when others have persisted and thrived? The Maya, for example, were sophisticated city-builders, with a culture that featured astronomy and mathematics. Yet from 800 or 900 AD, the Classic Mayan civilisation declined and eventually crashed, the people abandoning their cities and temples to the jungle. Easter Island is another long-standing mystery. A culture that was able to devote its energies to quarrying, chiselling and erecting vast stone statues, nevertheless went into a catastrophic terminal decline, the island's population dipping to a mere 2000 in the late 18th century and barely able to feed itself. Rather than attributing these collapses to a single cause, the author argues the case for a variety of factors, each serving to exacerbate the others. These include geography (for instance, Easter Island's extreme isolation) and climate change (for example, the droughts that afflicted Central America in the 8th and 9th centuries AD). These also include cultural or psychological factors such as a reluctance to exploit an unfamiliar food source, and "rational bad behaviour" which can lead to deforestation or over-fishing ("Everyone else is doing it, so why should I miss out?") To counter the argument that these failing civilisations were defective because they were non-European, Diamond provides the example of Norse Greenland. Viking settlers colonised Greenland from about the 10th century AD, bringing their European farming methods and livestock with them. However, by the 1540s the settlements were deserted and all inhabitants were dead. How could this have happened? It is evident that several factors were at work. From about 1350 AD onwards, the Medieval Warm Period came to an end and the climate in northern Europe began to cool considerably, causing an increase in sea ice which severely reduced the number of ships which could make the Greenlanders' main sources of income, became less valuable following the opening of southern trade routes at the time of the Crusades. And there were cultural factors for the dooming of the Greenland Norse, who clung to their European Christian lifestyle in the face of mounting difficulties. While the Inuit were hunting whales in their skilfully constructed kayaks, the Norse were struggling to maintain their herds of cattle and sheep, and were diverting valuable resources into the embellishment of their churches. Their relations with the Inuit (and with the "skraelings" encountered near the abortive Vinland colony to the west) seem never to have been very cordial. In a nutshell, the Norse failed to adapt to their environment, and suffered the consequences. Those who know me well will be aware that I'm interested in unusual and bizarre phenomena, and I know that other writers have linked the Mayan and Easter Island mysteries with events such as alien astronaut visitations. Jared Diamond invokes none of that sort of thing here, but makes a fascinating and compelling case for a combination of geographical, climatic and psychological factors which can act in concert to send a given culture into a vicious spiral of decline. I found Collapse to be a well-written, thought-provoking and thoroughly entertaining book, which has much that is relevant to the modern world. Refreshingly, the author does not use climate change as a kind of catch-all cause to explain why ancient societies were doomed. He does not take an overly environmentalist stance either, recognising the major role big business must play, if future collapses are to be averted. Neither is he uniformly pessimistic, acknowledging that we all face challenges if we wish our various cultures to survive, but hopeful that we will survive, if we learn from the lessons offered by history. He uses the Dutch model here, looking at the world as a giant polder that we would do well to maintain with a combination of ingenuity and respect for the forces of nature. To optimists and pessimists alike, I recommend Collapse - it might temper the blue-sky confidence of the optimists but it will also offer reassurance to those who fear that we are all heading for hell in a handbasket. We're not doomed yet - but we had better not be complacent. © Alex Cull, 12th September 2006 Guns, Germs and Steel ===================== Jared Diamond's book Guns, Germs and Steel looks at the big picture of human history on this planet. The author undertakes to show why the world (geo-politically, culturally, socially, ethnically) is as it is, and how it came to be that way. ================================================================================ As usual, I did this the wrong way round, reading Jared Diamond's follow-up book Collapse before moving on to this one. But it really doesn't matter that much; they're both brilliant and can be read in any order. This was certainly an ambitious project. An overview of human culture, with all of history and every corner of the globe in its scope. A search for the answer to some pretty compelling questions. For instance, why have some cultures been as widespread as weeds, dominating the Earth, whilst others have remained small and local? Why was it that Europeans rapidly colonised the Americas, subjugating the indigenous cultures as they did so, and not the other way round, for example Inca armies invading Spain? Why is it that China is a global giant, and not Africa? Diamond isolates several important factors that have operated decisively to shape the history of the human world. These include: geography (i.e. the physical layout of the planet), and the distribution of animal and plant species (which is part of the same thing, really.) He sheds light on some aspects of the world that I had never really thought about before. For instance, the observation that it is easier for animals, plants, diseases, people and ideas to spread from east to west (or west to east), rather than north-south, is significant. A useful plant species will find it easier to grow along the same latitude, rather than venture from a temperate to a tropical zone, or vice-versa. Where continents are arranged along an east-west axis, such as Eurasia (comprising Europe, the Middle East and Asia), it means that successful organisms will be able to spread much more effectively than if the axis is north-south, such as the Americas. Would the Mongols have conquered so much territory, had they been native to Peru? No, because the geography of the region would surely have confined them. Then there is the uneven distribution of plants and animals around the globe. The so-called "Big Five" domestic animals - cow, horse, sheep, goat, pig - originated in the Eurasian region (well, this is not strictly true, as horses originated in North America, but they died out there before the humans arrived.) On the other hand, Africa abounds in large mammals - megafauna, really - but none of them can be tamed. The upshot of this is that Eurasian agriculture and Eurasian civilisation generally, got a head start over their African counterparts. Events might have been very different, had the distribution of domesticated animals and plants been more equitable. As Diamond points out, Bantu shock troops mounted on rhinos might have conquered Rome - but in a different, alternative reality, not this one. Another example - ox-carts, hansom cabs and horse-drawn chariots are Eurasian phenomena, a melding of large domesticated mammals and the wheel. In South America there are large domesticated mammals - llamas - and in Mexico archaeologists have found ancient children's toys with wheels. But the north-south divide was too much for the two to connect - barriers of climate and terrain prevented the innovation of Mexican vehicles pulled by Andean llamas. So, realistically the chariot race in Ben Hur could have had a Roman, a Mesopotamian or a Chinese setting, but the odds were against it ever having an Aztec one. What Diamond does, importantly, is contradict the chauvinists who assert that the success of a given culture is due to the inherent biological superiority of one or another race. Geographical happenstance and climate count, in the grand scheme of things, skin colour and human genetic variance don't. When Australian aborigines and European settlers competed, the Europeans prevailed, but this was because the Europeans had sailing ships, gunpowder, horses, sheep and virulent Eurasian diseases, rather than any vaunted racial superiority. The bottom line is that the Europeans had a head start. I found Guns, Germs and Steel an excellent read. Jared Diamond writes authoritatively and entertainingly, whether it is about why hunter-gatherers are no less intelligent than city-dwellers (in fact, they generally need to be more intelligent and resourceful than urbanites), or why I cannot find salted acorns in my local supermarket (oaks have never been domesticated, as they are adapted to the needs of squirrels, not humans.) While in the midst of reading it, I watched a video of the movie Cold Mountain and found myself continually looking at familiar things in the movie - horses, chickens, cornfields, humans - with new eyes, at the expense of paying attention to the story. And his other books are good too. © Alex Cull, 16th February 2007 Top