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3.69 AVERAGE
3.69 AVERAGE
informative
medium-paced
A daunting undertaking
This books takes a bit to warm up to. It's a bold approach to explore a very complex problem by leveraging frameworks from many disciplines. This is a great opening volley in what will be a longer campaign of exploring how to operationalize key factors that can help us predict the outcome of crises.
This books takes a bit to warm up to. It's a bold approach to explore a very complex problem by leveraging frameworks from many disciplines. This is a great opening volley in what will be a longer campaign of exploring how to operationalize key factors that can help us predict the outcome of crises.
Not as good as "Guns, Germs, and steel" and clearly tried to stay just left of center. I found him less convincing and compelling BECAUSE he didn't take a side but I get why he didn't. Deep thinker, one of our best scientists in this area.
It’s a history.
It’s a geopolitical treatise exploring the places and times and reactions to events that shaped the current state of a select set of nations
It’s a sociological evaluation of the mindset and decisions and actions and reactions within those nations to which the author has had personal contact, and has researched the process of national growth and development to where we find those nations today.
Another round of applause to Dr. Jared Diamond in this most recent of his books exploring those areas of international states of events and processes.
This, after also reading other publications by Dr. Diamond (“Guns, Germs, and Steel” and “Collapse”) within his personal output, has me anxiously awaiting any future “magnum opus” that might be forthcoming.
It’s a geopolitical treatise exploring the places and times and reactions to events that shaped the current state of a select set of nations
It’s a sociological evaluation of the mindset and decisions and actions and reactions within those nations to which the author has had personal contact, and has researched the process of national growth and development to where we find those nations today.
Another round of applause to Dr. Jared Diamond in this most recent of his books exploring those areas of international states of events and processes.
This, after also reading other publications by Dr. Diamond (“Guns, Germs, and Steel” and “Collapse”) within his personal output, has me anxiously awaiting any future “magnum opus” that might be forthcoming.
With “Upheaval” Professor Jared Diamond again presents to us a fine and engaging look at who we are as a species and culture, examines a half-dozen calamities encountered by nations around the world, and delves into the whys and hows of those crises and what steps and changes were implemented by those nations in recovering from that event.
Definitely a good conclusion to what is called his “Civilizations Rise and Fall” trilogy.
Recommended.
Definitely a good conclusion to what is called his “Civilizations Rise and Fall” trilogy.
Recommended.
Ch 11, 89%. "But the cruel realities of world resource levels guarantee that the American way of life will change. Those realities of world resources cannot be negotiated out of existence. We Americans certainly will sacrifice our consumption rates, whether we decide to do so or not, because the world can't sustain our current rates. That wouldn't necessarily be a real sacrifice, because consumption rates and human well being, while they are related, are not tightly coupled. Much American consumption is wasteful, and doesn't contribute to high quality of life. For example per capita oil consumption rates in Western Europe are about half those in the US, but the well being of the average Western European is higher than that of the average American by any meaningful criteria, such as life expectancy, health, infant mortality, access to medical care, financial security after retirement, vacation time, quality of public schools, and support for the arts."
"There are other areas besides oil in which consumption rates in the US and in other first world countries are wasteful, such as the wasteful and destructive exploitation of most of the world's fisheries and forests already discussed. In short, it's certain that within the lifetimes of most of us, per capita consumption rates in the first world will be lower than they are now. The only question is whether we shall reach that outcome by planned methods of our choice, or by unpleasant methods not of our choice."
"There are other areas besides oil in which consumption rates in the US and in other first world countries are wasteful, such as the wasteful and destructive exploitation of most of the world's fisheries and forests already discussed. In short, it's certain that within the lifetimes of most of us, per capita consumption rates in the first world will be lower than they are now. The only question is whether we shall reach that outcome by planned methods of our choice, or by unpleasant methods not of our choice."
I think the average rating for Jared Diamond’s book ‘Upheaval’ is about right. It’s not nearly as groundbreaking as ‘Guns, Germs and Steel,’ and not quite as urgent as ‘Collapse,’ but it is still a solid addition to his body of work. I greatly appreciated two things about the book. First, I think his framework outlining how to look at crises and how nations deal with them, taken mostly from psychological literature, was quite useful. Second, the epilogue putting things together was well worth the read. I thought Diamond did a good job of acknowledging the limitations of his approach and making suggestions on how to move the study of national crises further. The obvious limitation, which Diamond acknowledges, is that his case studies are not random. And, while he does a good job with each case study, they are not comprehensive either. In other words, they are not illustrative of the variation seen around the world. That said, each case study does have lessons to teach. I would recommend reading this book if you are interested in the subject of how nations deal with crises, but I don’t think this has the broad appeal of Diamond’s earlier books.
This book is fantastic. I highly recommend this for anyone who is concerned about the US and the world. It helps put things in perspective: nations have experiences crises again and again, and have sometimes responded constructively and sometimes responded in ways they later regret. I see the future of the US and the world as one of dealing with crises, and it's extremely interesting to me to understand what to expect, and what to hope for. Much like Jared's other books, this one really makes you think, and is well worth re-reading later. I don't say that about very many books.
informative
reflective
fast-paced