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3.69 AVERAGE
3.69 AVERAGE
Starts well and finishes okay. Part 1 (30 pages) and bits of Part 3 (starting 300 pages in) were interesting. Generally though, this book is about political and cultural facts in the past, with barely a page per country analysing how they coped with their crisis. If you're reading this book for a breakdown based on the subtitle, there is maybe 15 pages in the whole thing that are relevant
I enjoyed learning about the countries he discussed. History, is not a subject I usually enjoy, but I was engaged through out. Part of that was learning about the unique and diverse stories behind the different nations, and part of it was realizing how fragile nations are. The latter point was a major theme of the book.
Applying an Individual Crisis Frame Work to a nation, was very interesting to me too. Partly because, I found the individual framework interesting. And, also because I am intrigued by the use of frameworks in diverse scenarios. He didn't just squeeze nations into an individual box, he was clear on the value and limitations of the approach.
Applying an Individual Crisis Frame Work to a nation, was very interesting to me too. Partly because, I found the individual framework interesting. And, also because I am intrigued by the use of frameworks in diverse scenarios. He didn't just squeeze nations into an individual box, he was clear on the value and limitations of the approach.
A very interesting read. I learned a lot about Finland, Chile and Japan. Part 3 was also very interesting and frightening.
First time got to know more about Indonesia’s history. Finished on audiobook, overall informative but didn’t find which part was particularly interesting.
Did you ever feel the urge to sneeze and you go through the whole preamble, freezing for a second, grabbing a tissue, taking a big inhalation and... nothing happens? And somehow you felt a little worse for not having sneezed? That's probably the best analogy I can give for reading Jared Diamond's latest book Upheaval.
The essential premise is to take the 12 factors identified by crisis therapists as factors for whether an individual will succeed at resolving a personal crisis and apply them to situations faced by a variety of countries throughout history. The idea is to explore how and why some countries succeeded at addressing crisis situations where others failed.
Those 12 factors are (with national crises analogs in parenths):
1. Acknowledgement that one is in crisis (national consensus)
2. Acceptance of one's personal responsibility to do something (national responsibility)
3. Building a fence, to delineate one's individual problems needing to be solved (national problems)
4. Getting material and emotional help from other individuals and groups (help from other nations)
5. Using other individuals as models of how to solve problems (other nations as models)
6. Ego strength (national identity)
7. Honest self-appraisal (national self-appraisal)
8. Experience of previous personal crises (previous national crises)
9. Patience (dealing with national failure)
10. Flexible personality (national flexibility)
11. Individual core values (national core values)
12. Freedom from personal constraints (geopolitical constraints)
Obviously, this framework only really works in analogy. How do you measure a sense of national identity? How many people have to take responsibility for something to constitute a national sense of responsibility? Diamond acknowledges the potentially problematic use of literary license in the introduction, so I was at least willing to tolerate it at first, assuming that the framework was just the means to get at an incisive conclusion about the current situation in the United States and globally.
The problem is, it lands like a wet fart.
His chapter on the United States does accurately describe both the strengths and weaknesses in its current state, I'm not saying that. He describes everything from our abundant natural resources to our democratic traditions to our enormous economy. And he also points out impediments to democracy like gerrymandering, voter suppression and the problem of money in politics as well as larger issues like growing income inequality and a wavering commitment to education.
But the problem is he spends the whole book setting up this elaborate and inherently flawed framework for assessing how a country will handle crises and it winds up feeling superfluous in the end.
Among the advantages he cites: strong national identity, flexibility inherent in our democratic tradition, freedom of action given by our friendly neighbors and two oceans. Among the disadvantages: unwillingness to accept responsibility, inability to make an honest self-appraisal, unwillingness to learn from others, and intolerance of failure. He spends like six pages on this and you read the pages and you think to yourself... yeah? So what? There's not much in the way of prescriptions. No bold vision for how the country can take on these intractable problems.
This wishy-washy conclusion would probably be more palatable if the whole work itself wasn't fraught with so many problems along the way. It's been well-documented, but there are a number of simple factual errors in the text. Not to mention a lot of abbreviated accounts where Diamond takes a strangely American stance. There are a number of examples, but top of mind are his strange false equivalence between the Allende and Pinochet regimes in Chile, his unwillingness to point out the obvious American involvement in Indonesia's coup in 1965, and this Cold War-era lack of acknowledgement of U.S. faults. He's got a whole section on how countries have to accept responsibility for what they have done and he scarcely mentions the ruinous effects of American foreign policy and global capitalism since WW2 except for a couple mentions of Vietnam.
A major problem with the book too is also how intensely personal it is. Seemingly the only reason he even adopted the crisis therapy frame is because his wife is a clinical psychologist. He picked the countries less for the examples they offered for the points he was trying to make than that they are countries that he has personal experience with and anecdotes about. Instead of citing research or other work in footnotes to the book, he will often cite anonymous friends and colleagues as sources for claims as bold and wide-ranging as how the entire nation of Chile felt after Salvador Allende killed himself. And this is saying nothing of Baby Boomerisms about how kids these days just lack social skills and that people on the internet are mean. It's just weird.
Now, I'm not going to say that I didn't enjoy certain parts of this book. I'm a Political Science major, so comparative politics is kind of my jam, flawed though these works usually are. There is a lot I didn't know about Finland and Indonesia in particular that I picked up quickly through those chapters. But given the flaws I found in the chapters about countries I am familiar with, there is a big fat shadow of doubt thrown across the whole thing.
Do I hate the book? No. Could I recommend it in good faith to just about anybody? Unfortunately, I don't think so.
The essential premise is to take the 12 factors identified by crisis therapists as factors for whether an individual will succeed at resolving a personal crisis and apply them to situations faced by a variety of countries throughout history. The idea is to explore how and why some countries succeeded at addressing crisis situations where others failed.
Those 12 factors are (with national crises analogs in parenths):
1. Acknowledgement that one is in crisis (national consensus)
2. Acceptance of one's personal responsibility to do something (national responsibility)
3. Building a fence, to delineate one's individual problems needing to be solved (national problems)
4. Getting material and emotional help from other individuals and groups (help from other nations)
5. Using other individuals as models of how to solve problems (other nations as models)
6. Ego strength (national identity)
7. Honest self-appraisal (national self-appraisal)
8. Experience of previous personal crises (previous national crises)
9. Patience (dealing with national failure)
10. Flexible personality (national flexibility)
11. Individual core values (national core values)
12. Freedom from personal constraints (geopolitical constraints)
Obviously, this framework only really works in analogy. How do you measure a sense of national identity? How many people have to take responsibility for something to constitute a national sense of responsibility? Diamond acknowledges the potentially problematic use of literary license in the introduction, so I was at least willing to tolerate it at first, assuming that the framework was just the means to get at an incisive conclusion about the current situation in the United States and globally.
The problem is, it lands like a wet fart.
His chapter on the United States does accurately describe both the strengths and weaknesses in its current state, I'm not saying that. He describes everything from our abundant natural resources to our democratic traditions to our enormous economy. And he also points out impediments to democracy like gerrymandering, voter suppression and the problem of money in politics as well as larger issues like growing income inequality and a wavering commitment to education.
But the problem is he spends the whole book setting up this elaborate and inherently flawed framework for assessing how a country will handle crises and it winds up feeling superfluous in the end.
Among the advantages he cites: strong national identity, flexibility inherent in our democratic tradition, freedom of action given by our friendly neighbors and two oceans. Among the disadvantages: unwillingness to accept responsibility, inability to make an honest self-appraisal, unwillingness to learn from others, and intolerance of failure. He spends like six pages on this and you read the pages and you think to yourself... yeah? So what? There's not much in the way of prescriptions. No bold vision for how the country can take on these intractable problems.
This wishy-washy conclusion would probably be more palatable if the whole work itself wasn't fraught with so many problems along the way. It's been well-documented, but there are a number of simple factual errors in the text. Not to mention a lot of abbreviated accounts where Diamond takes a strangely American stance. There are a number of examples, but top of mind are his strange false equivalence between the Allende and Pinochet regimes in Chile, his unwillingness to point out the obvious American involvement in Indonesia's coup in 1965, and this Cold War-era lack of acknowledgement of U.S. faults. He's got a whole section on how countries have to accept responsibility for what they have done and he scarcely mentions the ruinous effects of American foreign policy and global capitalism since WW2 except for a couple mentions of Vietnam.
A major problem with the book too is also how intensely personal it is. Seemingly the only reason he even adopted the crisis therapy frame is because his wife is a clinical psychologist. He picked the countries less for the examples they offered for the points he was trying to make than that they are countries that he has personal experience with and anecdotes about. Instead of citing research or other work in footnotes to the book, he will often cite anonymous friends and colleagues as sources for claims as bold and wide-ranging as how the entire nation of Chile felt after Salvador Allende killed himself. And this is saying nothing of Baby Boomerisms about how kids these days just lack social skills and that people on the internet are mean. It's just weird.
Now, I'm not going to say that I didn't enjoy certain parts of this book. I'm a Political Science major, so comparative politics is kind of my jam, flawed though these works usually are. There is a lot I didn't know about Finland and Indonesia in particular that I picked up quickly through those chapters. But given the flaws I found in the chapters about countries I am familiar with, there is a big fat shadow of doubt thrown across the whole thing.
Do I hate the book? No. Could I recommend it in good faith to just about anybody? Unfortunately, I don't think so.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
I will always treasure Jared Diamond’s mind, but this did not have the profound impact I found in Guns, Germs, and Steel, and The Third Chimpanzee. It was interesting to hear one of my favorite anthropologists analyze the histories and decisions of various places; especially less well known events that had vast and lasting impacts. I found his “twelve factors” to be well put together, but wish he had utilized these to create and support a more specific thesis. Not my favorite by Diamond, but interesting and well worth the read, nonetheless.
informative
medium-paced
One of the better non fiction books I have read In a long time.
Pros:
-wonderfully structured. An introduction that details exactly what you're in for, clear conclusions to each chapter and comparisons to other discussed works throughout. Reads like a long form persuasive essay.
-colloqual in tone without being dumbed down. As opposed to the other diamond book I have rea, guns,germs and steel, this book is written for a more general audience. Given the importance of the topic discussed I think this is a real positive for the book. I would not describe many long form persuasive historical essays as page turners but I finished this book in 5 days because it flowed so seamlessly.
-the countries discussed made me want to read more widely about history, especially the past 100 years eg formation of Soviet union, general histories about the second world war. The chapter on Finland was the best at getting me intrigued on this.
Cons
- since this book is comparative across seven countries and uses a framework to compare them, it does get a little repetitive. I'm unsure whether this could have been done better but I did find myself glossing over the repeated parts
- this is a personal gripe, but some complexity was left out for the sake of readability. I would have liked the book to be longer!
4.5/5
Pros:
-wonderfully structured. An introduction that details exactly what you're in for, clear conclusions to each chapter and comparisons to other discussed works throughout. Reads like a long form persuasive essay.
-colloqual in tone without being dumbed down. As opposed to the other diamond book I have rea, guns,germs and steel, this book is written for a more general audience. Given the importance of the topic discussed I think this is a real positive for the book. I would not describe many long form persuasive historical essays as page turners but I finished this book in 5 days because it flowed so seamlessly.
-the countries discussed made me want to read more widely about history, especially the past 100 years eg formation of Soviet union, general histories about the second world war. The chapter on Finland was the best at getting me intrigued on this.
Cons
- since this book is comparative across seven countries and uses a framework to compare them, it does get a little repetitive. I'm unsure whether this could have been done better but I did find myself glossing over the repeated parts
- this is a personal gripe, but some complexity was left out for the sake of readability. I would have liked the book to be longer!
4.5/5
challenging
informative
slow-paced
mulai jengkel karena cara dia cerita amat berlarut-larut. ya... itu mungkin itu bawaan dia, atau kebanyakan buku "ringan" kek gini.
dia bilang bahwa "Narrative style” yang dia pilih berarti bahwa argumen-argumen dibangun melalui penalaran tekstual, tanpa persamaan, grafik, tabel-tabel angka, atau pengujian statistik, dan dengan sample kasus yang terbatas.
artinya,
sediakan waktu cukup untuk dia cerita, untuk kita mendengar tuturan tekstualnya. lha itu yang bikin tidak sempat menyelesaikan bacanya... hihihi
dia bilang bahwa "Narrative style” yang dia pilih berarti bahwa argumen-argumen dibangun melalui penalaran tekstual, tanpa persamaan, grafik, tabel-tabel angka, atau pengujian statistik, dan dengan sample kasus yang terbatas.
artinya,
sediakan waktu cukup untuk dia cerita, untuk kita mendengar tuturan tekstualnya. lha itu yang bikin tidak sempat menyelesaikan bacanya... hihihi