I've been wanting to read this book for a long time so I was excited to finally get to it. It was much shorter and a much faster read tan I initially expected it to be.
I learned a lot about the history and production of each of the beverages- beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and Coke- and the context for each beverage is very interesting.
However, I have a bit of trouble believing that these beverages drove cultural changes, rather than the other way around. Just because coffee was popular and coffee houses were free places doesn't mean that freedom came naturally from drinking coffee. I think the rum was much more convincing.
A very interesting book and kind of a fun way to look at world history.

Mr. Friedman's theory of a "flat" world is of a world without barriers to free trade. It is, basically an argument for globalization, which he believes is desirable. However, he does not pay much attention to issues such as global climate change & the rise of religious fundalmentalism that might interfere with this goal.

It is full of interesting concepts and ideas if you can get past Tom Friedman.

I agree with some of the politics of this book, but the actual reading of it was pretty boring. I felt like much of it was very repetitive. He fails to separate the Religious Right with your standard conservatives- but that might not be division one can make, I don't know. He is convincing in his arguments but it would help if he didn't skip around and had the book follow a more linear path.
I also have no way of verifying many of his accusations; I'd be interested to know how much of it was true.

This book was very similar to Illicit, and I read them at about the same time. Like Illicit, I found it hard to get worked up about the majority of the book. Not all crime is created equal and I don't really care about pirated music.

This book discusses globalization, the breaking down of national borders and what that means for illegal trade. Although different types of illegal trade are discussed separately, the thesis is that all operate under the same rules and policy-wise should be treated in the same way. He also argues that the rules have fundamentally changed with globalization.

I found it easy to get worked up about the arms trade or people trafficking, but I just can't put counterfeit Gucchi bags on the same level. I feel like those things are so different that to put them on the same level, or to say that they're the same kind of crime makes the entire premise somewhat absurd. I also felt like the argument for not buying counterfeit goods because they fund terrorism was very weak.

Diamond does researchers of obscure stuff a big favour in writing this book. What "real world" value is there in a PhD's arcane studies into bird bones in middens on Easter Island or tree rings in New Mexico? Diamond scours this and many other kinds of data to build his theory about something really big - how and why some societies collapse. He also helps bridge a divide between the "real" and social sciences by using "real" scientific data to answer big social questions where controlled experiments aren't possible. For example, there were not two Easter Islands that we could use in a controlled experiment to explain why one collapsed and the other didn't. Instead Diamond uses a collection of like, somewhat different and really different cases to tease out a variety of factors at play. Finally, on this research theme, I thought it was pretty cool that he wrote a preface to explain his research design. I remember taking a course in research design in grad school. It turned out to be the most useful course I took, because it really drove home that discovery of truths or the creation of good theories is only possible through sound research, only made possible through sounds research design. Knowledge discovery is very rarely serendipitous.

Just 125 pages in. Looking forward to reading the rest...

Well, I'm finally done Collapse. Just want to capture first off what he had to say about his framework and cases for consideration. The first set of factors that cause collapse have to do with irreversible damages inadvertently inflicted upon the local environment by its inhabitants. The second is climate change, third is hostile neighbours, fourth is withdrawal of support from neighbouring or friendly peoples, and the fifth is how a society chooses to react to threats of collapse once it perceives those threats.

His first case is the Bitterroot Valley of Montana, what seemed to me at first to be a bit of a lazy choice - simply a place the author knew well. But it's a great choice, because he does plainly illustrate how what seems to be a picturesque and untouched place has in fact been suffered substantial damage when viewed through a long-view lens. One of the things Diamond does so well in this book and also in Guns, Germs and Steel is that he helps us think in multi-generational terms. So our temporal comparative perspective is 50 to 100 years as opposed to one year to the next. Especially after reading through all the cases he presents, where in all cases the process of collapse took centuries, when one thinks back to his first example of Montana, one is convinced that the destructive mining and logging practices, climate change and lack of political will to protect the commons over the last 100 years have indeed inflicted permanent damage. And if pristine Montana has been irreparably damaged think, about everywhere else in North America -- or the world, for that matter.

As an "environmentalist" he had some refreshing views. Again, emphasizing the long-term, he discusses the damages associated with invasive species and praises a volunteer in Australia who poisons foxes, "one of the area's most damaging introduced pest species." Another reason why the long view is useful is in determining proximate versus underlying causes. For example, a proximate cause for the fall of Rome would be barbarian invasions, whereas an underlying cause would be Rome's over-expansion.

Diamond uses good hypothesis testing to question the assumption that the Rwandan genocide in 1994 was essentially an ethnic conflict between Hutus and Tutsis. He notes research that found that in some villages where few Tutsis lived, there was still widespread killing, but the violence was carried out by poor Hutus and directed at richer, landowning Hutus. Diamond makes the case that underlying causes of the genocide had more to do with world-leading population densities than ethnic tension -- ethnic hatred provided the spark.

One of my favourite passages in the book is on page 489 of my copy where Diamond says biodiversity losses of small inedible species often provoke the response, "Who cares?" -- to which he says "That response misses the point that the entire natural world is made up of wild species providing for us with services that can be very expensive...Elimination of lots of lousy little species regularly causes big harmful consequences for humans, just as randomly knocking out many of the lousy little rivets holding together an airplane."

Collapse takes the reader on an intriguing journey through time and around the world exploring a question essential to humankind: why do some societies survive while others perish?

Author Jared Diamond provides a thoughtfully nuanced response by examining past collapses amongst Polynesian, Mesoamerican and Viking societies, which he juxtopposes with contemporary cases such as Rwanda and Haiti. His answer, in a nutshell, is that overextended exploitation of natural resources is the recipe for disaster. Societies based on the intensive exploitation of critical natural resources--- notably trees, arable land, fisheries, and watersheds--- are profoundly vulnerable to inevitable fluctuations in the bounty of such resources.

Diamond makes a compelling case for more cautious management and conservation of resources by contemporary societies. He achieves this not by preaching or doomsaying, but by carefully laying out the facts of past and present collapses, so that mistakes in environmental stewartship need not be repeated.

All in all, an insightful book on environmental policies that, given the controversial nature of the subject, is written in an agreeably level-headed style.

Very interesting look at several disparate societies and how they each collapsed under their own weight through a combination of bad choices and bad luck. For example, the original Easter Islanders essentially deforested their island which led to soil erosion, which lead to the inability to support themselves by growing their own food. That combined with various weather cycles, the overfishing and hunting of previously plentiful bird and fish species, and finally, inter-tribal warring lead to the disintegration of that society.

A good book, but pretty heavy and difficult to push through. That being said, my standards for Jareed Diamond are very high because "Guns, Germs, and Steel" was an amazing book.

Although interesting, I felt like this book took forever to work through and by the end I had lost much of my initial interest. The premise is interesting and there's lots of good data to support it, although as a biologist I find it sometimes hard to swallow all of the social science conclusions.
I found it hard to not feel that Diamond has a huge ego from this book (not that he doesn't deserve to have a big ego, but still). Maybe references to one's own life are more acceptable in social science circles than science.

According to Jared Diamond's theory, societies'responses to natural disasters, whether sudden like volcanic eruptions or gradual, such as rising sea levels or drought determine if the society continues or falls into collapse. An interesting read.

Best written case for globalization yet