I picked up this book in Fort Meyers, FL this past December while visiting my in-laws. The author, Jared Diamond, writes that the root causes of societal collapses points back to some combo of these five factors:
- Human environmental impacts, such as deforestation
- Climate change
- Attacks by neighboring enemies
- Loss of support from neighboring friendly societies
- How a society anticipates and reacts to these problems
I'm about halfway through it now and it is excellent. He tells stories about a bunch of societies that have collapsed, then goes into root causes and ties it all back into these five factors above. So far we've covered Easter Island (fascinating!), Pitcairn and Henderson Islands, the Anasazi of New Mexico, the Maya in Mexico and I'm in the middle of Nordic Greenland. This is a great read!
