Abstract
Jared Diamond’s grand historical narratives told in the books Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (hereafter Collapse) and Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (hereafter GGS) have been met with resounding popularity. Indeed, among other accolades, GGS has received the Pulitzer Prize and been retold in a National Geographic Society film, while Collapse has been the subject of a museum exhibit at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles. But this extra-academic popularity inevitably raises the attention and in some cases the ire of other academics, especially when the author is writing about specialized issues that he is not a specialist in. In this case, Diamond, who has a PhD in physiology, is a serious amateur ornithologist, and resides in the geography department at UCLA, marshals evidence from a number of disciplines, particularly anthropology, archeology, and history to tell his stories.
The collection of articles that make up Questioning Collapse (hereafter Questioning) originated in a panel co-organized by Patricia A. McAnany and Norman Yoffee (who also co-edit and contribute chapters to the book) at the Archaeology Division of the American Anthropological Association annual meeting in 2006, and with additional scholars contributing to a follow-up meeting in 2007. The authors were all experts in one of the areas of the world Diamond had covered in either GGS and Collapse, and were chiefly concerned with correcting what they argue are overgeneralizations, misinterpretations, incomplete coverage, or other flaws in the two books.
One of the main issues concerns the claims of collapse. Many of the authors point to evidence that they assert demonstrates that collapse did not occur for the societies in question and that actually reflects their resilience in the face of environmental or other challenges. This is particularly the case if time and culture are considered rather than just the decline of a specific population size in a particular location: for example, the Greenland Norse may have migrated on to other fjords only after surviving for a half-millennium (according to Joel Berglund); the Pueblos are the ancestors of those labeled the Anasazi, who migrated from Chaco Canyon during climate stress (according to Michael Wilcox); Easter Islanders never disappeared (according to Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo); the Maya culture was transformed, the population relocated and remains throughout many areas of modern-day Mexico and Central America (according to Patricia A. McAnany and Tomás Gallareta Negrón).
Their claims of resilience are certainly correct – as is pointed out, the story of our species is one of mostly continual fluorescence if the view taken is course enough – yet that does not mean that Diamond’s claims of collapse are wrong, according to his definition of the concept. Diamond’s argument is that collapse is ‘a drastic decrease in human population size and/or political/economic/social complexity, over a considerable area, for an extended time’ (2005: 3). Frustratingly imprecise, yes, but there are many levels on which to assess the validity of research and Diamond’s cases do seem to meet the definition he constructed, however poorly operationalized it is. Most of the authors of Questioning are using a different concept of collapse to do their questioning, yet theirs similarly suffers from a lack of precision. Collapse is described as existing when it occurs ‘in an absolute and apocalyptic sense’ (p. 5) and is then defined as ‘the end of a social order and its people’ (p. 11). The use of different and imprecise definitions for the key analytical concept weakens the debate that is sought and results in the unfortunate situation in which both Diamond and the authors of Questioning found support for the concepts they sought to explain. There are two exceptions. J.R. McNeill provides a nice closing chapter by taking on the cases using Diamond’s exact definition. He finds that the imprecision of the concept creates ambiguity in assessing its occurrence; for example, some of Collapse’s success stories have existed for hundreds of years less than the Greenland Norse. Norman Yoffee also argues against collapse according to Diamond’s definition in his chapter on Mesopotamia, yet provides an unusual exception in which he yet continues to use the term collapse in his evidence that seems to support it.
Of course the ultimate validity depends on the ability of the researcher(s) during the gathering, analyzing, and reporting of the evidence such that the explanation provided accurately reflects the phenomenon studied. The authors of Questioning shine on this measure, utilizing myriad empirical and historical facts to point out the omissions, misinterpretations, and inaccuracies of GGS and Collapse. Heeding the authors’ advice to Diamond and other ‘outsiders’, I cannot quibble with the facts and perspective they bring as experts on the topics and in fields that I am not similarly versed. Since many of the cases occurred centuries or millennia ago, availability and accuracy of evidence will likely require a Questioning of the Questioning at some later date, the stories presented in this volume certainly come with high-levels of authority. And the stories are fascinating. For example, scholars of this journal will likely be quite familiar with the excellent work of Kenneth Pomeranz, here he provides a concise and considered discussion of China history from the 14th century to present that is sprinkled with maps as illustration (China did not collapse as continuity occurred in all but the North and Northwest and there ‘collapse followed by rebirth’ occurred ‘only briefly and with many qualifications’, p. 97). David Cahill’s chapter on the fall of the Inca Empire in the 16th century – a story of collaboration between the conquerors and members of the conquered – is equally compelling.
It is suggested more than once that Diamond may be guilty of unreflexively applying ‘Western’ notions of success and failure and rationality in his judgments of the many societies he considers. For example, Wilcox laments the claims of unsustainability for the Hohokam (who Wilcox notes are correctly named the O’Odham) in light of the occupation of sprawling, polluted, and water-short Phoenix on their land. Christopher C. Taylor’s chapter on the Rwandan Genocide uses cultural symbolism and an understanding of sacred kingship specific to the Rwandan people to argue that the catastrophe was not a Malthusian correction. An even stronger indictment is that GGS and Collapse assume the not only the superiority of the West but the inferiority and backwardness of the ‘Other’. These criticisms do appear to be valid when considering many of the ways in which Diamond portrays the differences between the core and peripheral societies he discusses, although Diamond is clear that, for all its progress, the West (re: largely the United States) is not using its advantages sustainably. Taking a more global perspective, Frederick Errington and Deborah Gewertz and also J.R. McNeill point out that the world needs to be thought of as a single unit when looking at environmental degradation; for example, unequal ecological exchange in which degradation in one society may be the result of another society’s demand or use of resources.
Another issue of contention is the ‘choice’ that Diamond claims for societies (more accurately, the choices of those with power). Questions of who makes the choice, why, and whether a choice was even made are (re)considered. Wilcox reports that Diamond’s claim of environmental overextension for the Hohokam should be told as the results of water mismanagement and theft by Anglo-American settlers upstream and devastating Congressional and Bureau of Indian Affairs policies. Colonialism as shaping the issue of choice is also present in chapters by Drexel G. Woodson on Haitian struggles and Tim Murray on social relations between the Aborigines and settlers in Australia.
Overall, this is a volume that deserves to be read, and would work well as a teaching tool for both advanced undergraduate and graduate courses. While prior reading of GGS and Collapse is essential for the reader to fully understand the arguments against them offered in Questioning, the chapters stand up well on their own. Dare I say that this book would also be accessible and enjoyable to a popular audience?