When I lived with Adam Welle, he always harassed me that I needed to read Jared Diamond's (no relation to Dustin Diamond) Guns, Germs, and Steel. Unfortunately, I still haven't read GGS, but while browsing at Lien's books last week, I did stumble upon another great book of Diamond's. In Collapse, Diamond examines a number of civilizations (Maya, Anasazi, Norse in Greenland, Easter Island...) and hypothesizes why these great civilizations eventually failed. At the beginning of this book, Diamond identifies a number of potential environmental, political, and social drivers and then walks through the plausibility of each driver contributing to the civilization's collapse. This is a very fascinating read that really helped me learn what a civilization needs to survive. I already find myself relating learnings from this book to my everyday life. Yes, I understand that sounds pathetic, but I'm just a pathetic guy who likes to think about soil quality and loss of trade partners.Completed: End of September
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