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akkinenirajesh's review against another edition
4.0
Covered my lack of awareness about world history(to some extent), and made me realise the importance of persuing realistic goals and understand the need for compramise.
vayeate's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
4.0
The only nit pick I have is that it seems that the author does not go into much depth on some topics and is nor presenting the complete picture. However Jared here wrote this book with meticulous effort in six years. I have read this book in what ? Like in a week, a week and half.
Does not seem exactly right screaming that the authoar is biased on some topics from my high hill.
Besides that, once again an excellent book by Jared that I could and would recommend to everyone.
Does not seem exactly right screaming that the authoar is biased on some topics from my high hill.
Besides that, once again an excellent book by Jared that I could and would recommend to everyone.
sweetcuppincakes's review against another edition
4.0
Unlike Guns, Germs, and Steel, this work suffers from some scope issues - it seems to take on more than Diamond initially set out to do, going from writing about the crises of six countries that he has had some personal connection to, to then writing about the crises that the US and the globe at large face in the future. While he admits as much that he takes a qualitative approach to analyzing these crises, and that a quantitative approach proved too difficult (particularly to operationalize the measures of what constitutes a marker/indication for a nation undergoing a crisis), Upheaval does appear lacking in the amount and rigor of quantitative data and analysis that went into a work like Guns, Germs, and Steel. Notwithstanding this one critique, it's still an engaging read and I learned some recent histories of countries I didn't know much about.
alykat_reads's review against another edition
informative
medium-paced
4.0
Overall, loving the message of this book. This book focuses on 7 nations - US, Chile, Indonesia, Japan, Germany, Australia, and Finland. I did learn a lot about Chile, Indonesia, and Finland - all countries that aren't really ever mentioned or talked about in US history or social studies classes. I did learn quite a bit and found topics I want to look more into. I also learned the real meaning behind the phrase "grandfathered in". Maybe just ignorance on my part but I never knew where that saying came from, but of course it has racist origins.
DEFINITELY will be looking more into Pinochet, as that was someone I'd never heard of before. While I'm not denying the atrocity that was the Holocaust, it's been pretty telling to me lately through reading about many other nations how much the Holocaust is centered/focused on while atrocities greater than that are just ignored. Again, I'm not denying the Holocaust or that it was terrible. It's just that it's framed in the way that "no other people suffered like we did", when over 2/3 of victims of the Holocaust are rarely talked about/mentioned, and that many, many other groups around the world have suffered just as horrible atrocities - Chile, South Africa, Rwanda, Congo, and Sudan, just to name a few. Just further proof of how ingrained white supremacy is throughout the world.
There were a few things I didn't really care for in this book, which is why I deducted a star. This book is about nations in crisis. I'd say that the genocide of indigenous people in the US and Australia is a pretty big crisis, but the author doesn't even acknowledge them. While I do agree with him that current (the last ~20 years) issues in the US can be considered crises and it's okay to examine them, it felt disingenuous when talking about Australians and how they have an 'identity' crisis of 'are they British or not?'... Like the British colonized that land and you can't even mention the Aboriginals / First Nations people and their existence? Idk, it just seemed neglectful considering the topic of this book.
The author definitely put in time with the research that went into this, and the sheer amount of information in here. I'm looking forward to reading the other 2 books in this 'series.'
DEFINITELY will be looking more into Pinochet, as that was someone I'd never heard of before. While I'm not denying the atrocity that was the Holocaust, it's been pretty telling to me lately through reading about many other nations how much the Holocaust is centered/focused on while atrocities greater than that are just ignored. Again, I'm not denying the Holocaust or that it was terrible. It's just that it's framed in the way that "no other people suffered like we did", when over 2/3 of victims of the Holocaust are rarely talked about/mentioned, and that many, many other groups around the world have suffered just as horrible atrocities - Chile, South Africa, Rwanda, Congo, and Sudan, just to name a few. Just further proof of how ingrained white supremacy is throughout the world.
There were a few things I didn't really care for in this book, which is why I deducted a star. This book is about nations in crisis. I'd say that the genocide of indigenous people in the US and Australia is a pretty big crisis, but the author doesn't even acknowledge them. While I do agree with him that current (the last ~20 years) issues in the US can be considered crises and it's okay to examine them, it felt disingenuous when talking about Australians and how they have an 'identity' crisis of 'are they British or not?'... Like the British colonized that land and you can't even mention the Aboriginals / First Nations people and their existence? Idk, it just seemed neglectful considering the topic of this book.
The author definitely put in time with the research that went into this, and the sheer amount of information in here. I'm looking forward to reading the other 2 books in this 'series.'