ABSTRACT
One scholar who has wed academic and popular writing with success is Jared Diamond, whose influence is such that it is requisite to address his work on collapse. Diamond's definition of collapse is very similar to ours, as "drastic decrease" of population and sociopolitical/economic complexity "over a considerable area, for an extended time". This chapter focuses on Diamond's five important factors were involved in each case, according to his accounting. Diamond also discusses a few of the successful societies from the past – New Guinea highlands, Tikopia Island, and Tokugawa Japan – which were able to discover sustainable techniques and find the proper economy for their environment. Concerned with the vulnerability that leads to collapse, archaeologists are interested in what socioecological system characteristics might lead to problems, such as increasing complexity or intensifying production in reaction to climate change or other perturbations. Diamond stressed human-induced environmental degradation as a cause.
