You searched for book_author:"Jared Diamond"
Two people recommended this book to me on two separate occasions, so I was eager to read it. While the book turned out to be as thought-provoking as I had hoped, the writing left something to be desired.
Jared Diamond has a compelling thesis and offers good arguments to support it, including numerous figures, charts, maps, and dates. However, in his zeal for such statistics, he often forgets about the coherency of the writing, and…
As I began reading The Third Chimpanzee, a little voice in my head told me that I should stop reading books by Jared Diamond. His subsequent three popular science books all have their origins in this one; I began with Guns, Germs, and Steel and then read Collapse. So reading The Third Chimpanzee was sort of like getting a summary of those two books, plus the one I haven't read yet. Thus,…
My objections to Collapse are nearly identical to the ones I voiced in my review of Guns, Germs, and Steel. Jared Diamond's thesis that past societal collapses have largely been due to five main factors is a good thesis, and he makes a compelling argument. However, Collapse is poorly written and edited; Diamond reiterates his points so much that it feels somewhat patronizing.
Diamond analyzes the collapse of six past societies: the Easter Islanders,…