"What caused some of the great civilizations of the past to collapse into ruin, and what can we learn from their fates? Moving from the prehistoric Polynesian culture on Easter Island to the doomed Viking colony on Greenland and finally to the modern world, Diamond traces a fundamental pattern of catastrophe, spelling out what happens when we squander our resources, when we ignore the signals our environment gives us, and when we reproduce too fast or cut down too many trees. Environmental damage, climate change, rapid population growth, and unstable trade partners, and pressure from enemies were all factors in the demise of the doomed societies, but other societies found solutions to those same problems and persisted. Huge in scope, clear and passionate in style, Collapse is destined to take its place as one of the essential books of our time, raising the urgent question: How can our world best avoid destroying itself?"--Container.