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How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Feb 27, 2013Liber_vermis rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
The author offers a readable chronicle of ancient and modern societies that have failed or overcome challenges. Most chapters end with hints on how its lessons might guide us today. In the final chapter he summarizes twelve factors that govern the success or failure of cultures. I felt that this wrap-up was weak - otherwise why did he feel the need to write the 5-page "what I can do" section at the back of the endnotes? Finally, I found it shocking that Diamond approves of locally "environment-friendly" fossil fuel extraction but appears to overlook the greenhouse gas emissions that have global survival implications! Puzzling. This long-winded, 550-page book needed a good copy editor to pare it down to 300-pages.