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3.69 AVERAGE
3.69 AVERAGE
The book introduced how 7 nations dealt with crises and at the end prompt readers to think about latest crises imposed on the human race, like climate changes.
History is messy, so I appreciate any framework that can introduce any sense to understanding it and the human behaviours involved in these historical events.
Although humans are terrible at learning from the past, I believe books like this would at least leave a mark in readers, so that unconciously we appreciate more how nations/cultures that we know little of behave. "There are broad themes in human behaviour, even though everyone differs in detail from everyone else."
History is messy, so I appreciate any framework that can introduce any sense to understanding it and the human behaviours involved in these historical events.
Although humans are terrible at learning from the past, I believe books like this would at least leave a mark in readers, so that unconciously we appreciate more how nations/cultures that we know little of behave. "There are broad themes in human behaviour, even though everyone differs in detail from everyone else."
Gosto imenso de Jared Diamond, por isso nunca me canso de o ler e ouvir. É verdade que ele tende a realizar um trabalho altamente especulativo sobre objetos de estudo que à primeira vista poderiam ser tratados de forma mais empírica, mas é isso que o torna tão interessante, porque não hesita em trabalhar nas fronteiras das múltiplas disciplinas para encontrar novas respostas e novas formas de compreender o mundo. Neste seu mais recente livro Diamond faz um cruzamento direto entre a Psicologia, em particular as abordagens ao tratamento de crises pessoais, e a História Económica de países inteiros. O resultado apresentado, 12 passos para lidar com as crises, terá a sua relevância e também limitações, mas gostei particularmente das sínteses que Diamond traçou das crises dos diferentes países retratados — Finlândia, Japão, Chile, Indonesia, Alemanha, Australia e EUA.
O resto está no blog em:
https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com/2020/07/psicologia-humana-e-gestao-de-grandes.html
O resto está no blog em:
https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com/2020/07/psicologia-humana-e-gestao-de-grandes.html
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced
Jared Diamond has become a rather controversial figure in the geopolitics space. The criticisms I've heard of Jared Diamond are somewhat present here in Upheaval. I also see why he is such a well known name. My review is for this particular book. I have not read Diamond's other works and so don't have those to cloud my judgement on this one.
The criticisms of Diamond I've heard before are that his style of geopolitical and historical analysis is quite reductive, and oversimplifies international and national movements, trends, and politics. This then leads to errors in his analyses. With Upheaval, I see some of this at work. Diamond writes this book as if it were a combination of a PhD thesis, a personal journal, and a historical narrative. This is a rather ambitious mission. If his point was to provide a defensible theory on nations in crises, then this book could have benefited from less personal narrative and more quantitative data. But then again, such an academic study would serve better as an actual PhD thesis than a book for the public. Diamond in fact addresses this in Upheaval. The book is based on qualitative, not quantitative, case studies of seven different nations that Diamond has personal experience with.
I do wish there was less time spent on Diamond's personal time spent in each country, I am less interested in his life story than I am in the national stories he covers. I also question the wisdom of comparing nations to individual people and finding similarity in national reactions to crises to personal reactions to crises. In my opinion, too many variables exist that can shape national reactions to crises, while with individual people, psychology is still a rather unstable science that has somewhat recently undergone a replication crisis. I do respect the work trauma therapists and geopolitical scientists do, and perhaps some interesting insights can be gleaned from the connection between human behavior and the behavior of the institutions they build.
But the real reason I was interested in this book was the history. And at this, Diamond is clearly one of the best. His descriptions of national histories at crises points are clear and accurate, at least for the nations I have studied before: Japan, Germany, the US, and Australia. His descriptions of modern crises facing the US and the entire world have only become more prescient. This book was published in 2019. I wonder what his thoughts are watching national reactions to the Covid 19 pandemic and the continuing polarization crisis in the US.
I can't help but feel that my love for the history is the problem. If I'm interested in the history, why don't I just read a history book on Japan, Indonesia, Chile, Germany, Australia, Finland, and the United States? Is it because I like the thesis on how nations handle crises? The guidance that these 7 national histories can provide? Okay, sure, but he bases those crises frameworks on the pyschotherapy work done on individual people. Is it useful? Does it sound good? It does seem at least a little useful, he makes certain compelling connections. At the very least its a fun thought experiment. As to how actually relevant and useful it is in the real world, that could be highly debatable. Diamond strikes me as a more classic academic type that buries himself in research and books and academics, without the strong practical experience that comes from being a decision maker in power. But his history is accurate, so he can't be that wrong.
I have no choice but to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this book, mainly because of the history, and I can conveniently ignore Diamond's personal narrative sections and focus on what I enjoy the most. Thus, the regular criticisms that I hear of Diamond might be somewhat true, but I either did not really see it in this book, or I don't necessarily care because I got what I wanted out of it. It is certainly possible that Diamond learned his lessons from criticisms of his previous works. It's possible my very engagement with the history and not the thesis proves the critics points. I could just read national history books, sure. This does not overshadow the fact that Diamond is an effective and engaging history writer.
This is a pretty high recommend from me for anyone interested in geopolitical analysis, probably for a beginner or intermediately experienced student or someone who has a general interest in global politics and history. You don't have to agree with every bit to enjoy it!
The criticisms of Diamond I've heard before are that his style of geopolitical and historical analysis is quite reductive, and oversimplifies international and national movements, trends, and politics. This then leads to errors in his analyses. With Upheaval, I see some of this at work. Diamond writes this book as if it were a combination of a PhD thesis, a personal journal, and a historical narrative. This is a rather ambitious mission. If his point was to provide a defensible theory on nations in crises, then this book could have benefited from less personal narrative and more quantitative data. But then again, such an academic study would serve better as an actual PhD thesis than a book for the public. Diamond in fact addresses this in Upheaval. The book is based on qualitative, not quantitative, case studies of seven different nations that Diamond has personal experience with.
I do wish there was less time spent on Diamond's personal time spent in each country, I am less interested in his life story than I am in the national stories he covers. I also question the wisdom of comparing nations to individual people and finding similarity in national reactions to crises to personal reactions to crises. In my opinion, too many variables exist that can shape national reactions to crises, while with individual people, psychology is still a rather unstable science that has somewhat recently undergone a replication crisis. I do respect the work trauma therapists and geopolitical scientists do, and perhaps some interesting insights can be gleaned from the connection between human behavior and the behavior of the institutions they build.
But the real reason I was interested in this book was the history. And at this, Diamond is clearly one of the best. His descriptions of national histories at crises points are clear and accurate, at least for the nations I have studied before: Japan, Germany, the US, and Australia. His descriptions of modern crises facing the US and the entire world have only become more prescient. This book was published in 2019. I wonder what his thoughts are watching national reactions to the Covid 19 pandemic and the continuing polarization crisis in the US.
I can't help but feel that my love for the history is the problem. If I'm interested in the history, why don't I just read a history book on Japan, Indonesia, Chile, Germany, Australia, Finland, and the United States? Is it because I like the thesis on how nations handle crises? The guidance that these 7 national histories can provide? Okay, sure, but he bases those crises frameworks on the pyschotherapy work done on individual people. Is it useful? Does it sound good? It does seem at least a little useful, he makes certain compelling connections. At the very least its a fun thought experiment. As to how actually relevant and useful it is in the real world, that could be highly debatable. Diamond strikes me as a more classic academic type that buries himself in research and books and academics, without the strong practical experience that comes from being a decision maker in power. But his history is accurate, so he can't be that wrong.
I have no choice but to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this book, mainly because of the history, and I can conveniently ignore Diamond's personal narrative sections and focus on what I enjoy the most. Thus, the regular criticisms that I hear of Diamond might be somewhat true, but I either did not really see it in this book, or I don't necessarily care because I got what I wanted out of it. It is certainly possible that Diamond learned his lessons from criticisms of his previous works. It's possible my very engagement with the history and not the thesis proves the critics points. I could just read national history books, sure. This does not overshadow the fact that Diamond is an effective and engaging history writer.
This is a pretty high recommend from me for anyone interested in geopolitical analysis, probably for a beginner or intermediately experienced student or someone who has a general interest in global politics and history. You don't have to agree with every bit to enjoy it!
challenging
informative
slow-paced
informative
medium-paced
informative
Upheaval is a non fiction book that I recently read and found interesting.
This book is part of a trilogy called Civilizations Rise and Fall, but yopu don't need to read the previous two in order to understand this one.
This is a challenging exploration of the human capacity for resilience and transformation and it offers a gripping and insightful journey through the stories of seven countries that have navigated catastrophic upheavals, revealing timeless lessons for individuals and nations seeking to thrive in the face of adversity.
The author traces how six distinctive modern nations - Finland, Chile, Indonesia, Japan, Germany and Australia - have survived defining catastrophes, and identifies patterns in their recovery. Looking ahead, he investigates the risk that the United States and other countries, faced by grave threat, are set on a course towards catastrophe.
This book is part of a trilogy called Civilizations Rise and Fall, but yopu don't need to read the previous two in order to understand this one.
This is a challenging exploration of the human capacity for resilience and transformation and it offers a gripping and insightful journey through the stories of seven countries that have navigated catastrophic upheavals, revealing timeless lessons for individuals and nations seeking to thrive in the face of adversity.
The author traces how six distinctive modern nations - Finland, Chile, Indonesia, Japan, Germany and Australia - have survived defining catastrophes, and identifies patterns in their recovery. Looking ahead, he investigates the risk that the United States and other countries, faced by grave threat, are set on a course towards catastrophe.
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
This book is: a comparative, narrative, exploratory study of crisis and selective change operating over many decades in seven modern nations, of all of which I have much personal experience, and viewed from the perspective of selective change in personal crises. Those nations are Finland, Japan, Chile, Indonesia, Germany, Australia, and the United States.
-Jared Diamond, Upheaval
Jared Diamond is a master of comparative study, seemingly able to take a broadly complex topic and distill it down into a digestible format, using comparative examples to support his points. In the case of Upheaval, Diamond attempts to extrapolate personal psychological response to crisis into a nation at large, using countries he is most familiar with. He freely admits the limitations of his approach, as well as acknowledging that it was the fallback to his original approach: a qualitative analysis using data, facts and large-scale statistics. As such, while this book makes many interesting points, and provides some great food for thought, it ultimately is just an anecdotal idea generator. Easily dismissed by naysayers and Diamond-haters, with heavy lifting to be done by someone else at some future date.
Diamond breaks the “predictors for successful outcome” down to 12 essential points:
1. National consensus that one's nation is in crisis
2. Acceptance of national responsibility to do
something
3. Building a fence, to delineate the national problems needing to be solved
4. Getting material and financial help from other
nations
5. Using other nations as models of how to solve the
problems
6. National identity
7. Honest national self-appraisal
8. Historical experience of previous national crises
9. Dealing with national failure
10. Situation-specific national flexibility
11. National core values
12. Freedom from geopolitical constraints
A nation need not all predictors, but the more the better. He then goes through every nation, picking a particular crisis and how that nation ignored/failed to see the crisis coming or were shocked by a sudden crisis, and their subsequent responses.
I did find the book interesting, and enlightening in some arguments. In particular Finland’s diplomatic and military response to the Russian invasion of 1939 (a lesson Ukraine is probably looking to currently, one hopes), and the chilling similarities between Chile’s coup and subsequent terror and my own United States current political climate and economic disparity.
I would recommend this book to anyone for an interesting, thought provoking read, even if ultimately it falls a bit short of it’s own intended goals. Those with socialist or anti-capitalism sentiments will certainly hate it. I did not.
-Jared Diamond, Upheaval
Jared Diamond is a master of comparative study, seemingly able to take a broadly complex topic and distill it down into a digestible format, using comparative examples to support his points. In the case of Upheaval, Diamond attempts to extrapolate personal psychological response to crisis into a nation at large, using countries he is most familiar with. He freely admits the limitations of his approach, as well as acknowledging that it was the fallback to his original approach: a qualitative analysis using data, facts and large-scale statistics. As such, while this book makes many interesting points, and provides some great food for thought, it ultimately is just an anecdotal idea generator. Easily dismissed by naysayers and Diamond-haters, with heavy lifting to be done by someone else at some future date.
Diamond breaks the “predictors for successful outcome” down to 12 essential points:
1. National consensus that one's nation is in crisis
2. Acceptance of national responsibility to do
something
3. Building a fence, to delineate the national problems needing to be solved
4. Getting material and financial help from other
nations
5. Using other nations as models of how to solve the
problems
6. National identity
7. Honest national self-appraisal
8. Historical experience of previous national crises
9. Dealing with national failure
10. Situation-specific national flexibility
11. National core values
12. Freedom from geopolitical constraints
A nation need not all predictors, but the more the better. He then goes through every nation, picking a particular crisis and how that nation ignored/failed to see the crisis coming or were shocked by a sudden crisis, and their subsequent responses.
I did find the book interesting, and enlightening in some arguments. In particular Finland’s diplomatic and military response to the Russian invasion of 1939 (a lesson Ukraine is probably looking to currently, one hopes), and the chilling similarities between Chile’s coup and subsequent terror and my own United States current political climate and economic disparity.
I would recommend this book to anyone for an interesting, thought provoking read, even if ultimately it falls a bit short of it’s own intended goals. Those with socialist or anti-capitalism sentiments will certainly hate it. I did not.