Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail or Succeed - Book Structure

Book Structure

Collapse is divided into four parts.

• Part One describes the environment of the US state of Montana, focusing on the lives of several individuals in order to put a human face on the interplay between society and the environment.
• Part Two describes past societies that have collapsed. Diamond uses a "framework" when considering the collapse of a society, consisting of five "sets of factors" that may affect what happens to a society: environmental damage, climate change, hostile neighbors, loss of trading partners, and the society's own responses to its environmental problems. The societies Diamond describes are:
  • The Greenland Norse (climate change, environmental damage, loss of trading partners, irrational reluctance to eat fish, hostile neighbors and most unwillingness to adapt in the face of social collapse)
  • Easter Island (a society that collapsed entirely due to environmental damage)
  • The Polynesians of Pitcairn Island (environmental damage and loss of trading partners)
  • The Anasazi of southwestern North America (environmental damage and climate change)
  • The Maya of Central America (environmental damage, climate change, and hostile neighbours)
  • Finally, Diamond discusses three past success stories:
    • The tiny Pacific island of Tikopia
    • The agricultural success of central New Guinea
    • The Tokugawa-era forest management in Japan.
• Part Three examines modern societies, including:
  • The collapse into genocide of Rwanda, caused in part by overpopulation
  • The failure of Haiti compared with the relative success of its neighbour on Hispaniola, the Dominican Republic
  • The problems facing a developing nation, China
  • The problems facing a First World nation, Australia
• Part Four concludes the study by considering such subjects as business and globalization, and "extracts practical lessons for us today" (p. 22 – 23). Specific attention is given to the polder model as a way Dutch society has addressed its challenges and the "top-down" and most importantly "bottom-up" approaches that we must take now that "our world society is presently on a non-sustainable course" (p. 498) in order to avoid the "12 problems of non-sustainability" that he expounds throughout the book, and reviews in the final chapter. The results of this survey are perhaps why Diamond sees "signs of hope" nevertheless and arrives at a position of "cautious optimism" for all our futures.