Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

If arranging a bpb book read wasn’t a nigh-improbable task, I would say we should put our eyes and minds to this book I saw in this review.

One day in the middle of the 17th century, the very last tree on Easter Island was cut down. An island which had once been blessed with forests containing many types of tree, including the largest species of palm known to man, was now reduced to bare grassland and volcanic desert. Despite increasing problems with soil erosion, the islanders could still grow some crops, such as yams and sugarcane; but fishing at sea became almost impossible, because there was no new timber for boat-building.

…

One cannot read about this – one of many case-histories of social and environmental collapse discussed in Jared Diamond’s new book – without asking the question: what went through the mind of the person who cut down that last tree? It is almost impossible to think of an answer – unless he was imagining that one final sacrifice to the gods would be rewarded with a miraculous new forest. But perhaps the tree was old and diseased; perhaps its last seedlings had failed. The more troubling question, surely, concerns the period just before: why, when there was still a small but viable stock of trees, did the islanders continue to destroy them?

Posted by etrigan at April 1, 2005 3:21 PM

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