01: Vulnerabilities: Why do civilizations collapse?

Owned by Chandler Museum
Jun 18, 2024
1 min read
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Jared Diamond’s 2005 New York Times Bestseller Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed and National Geographic’s 2010 documentary “Collapse,” based on Diamond’s book, brought public attention and interest to societal failure.  Diamond defines collapse as a “drastic decrease” in a civilization’s population and structure “for an extended time.”  There is no one single cause for a society’s collapse, rather a combination of several vulnerabilities that lead to failure.  Vulnerabilities are ways in which a society is susceptible to damage or injury.  Diamond outlines five general vulnerabilities which lead to societal collapse:

  • human environmental damage

  • climate change

  • hostile neighbors

  • loss of neighboring friendly societies

  • failure to adapt to vulnerabilities

To watch Jared Diamonds talk about societal collapse at TED, click HERE.