Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (also titled Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive) is a 2005 book by Jared M. Diamond, professor of geography and physiology at University of California, Los Angeles. Diamond's book deals with "societal collapses involving an environmental component, and in some cases also contributions of climate change, hostile neighbors, and trade partners, plus questions of societal responses" (p. 15). In writing the book Diamond intended that its readers should learn from history (p. 23). In the prologue, Diamond summarizes Collapse in one paragraph: Diamond identifies five factors that contribute to collapse: climate change, hostile neighbors, collapse of essential trading partners,...