01: Vulnerabilities: Why do civilizations collapse?
- Chandler Museum
Analytics
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.