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Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed
Author
Language
English
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Table of Contents
From the Book
Prologue : a tale of two farms
Two farms
Collapses, past and present
Vanished Edens?
A five-point framework
Businesses and the environment
The comparative method
Plan of the book
pt. 1. Modern Montana
1. Under Montana's big sky
Stan Falkow's story
Montana and me
Why begin with Montana?
Montana's economic history
Mining
Forests
Soil
Water
Native and non-native species
Differing visions
Attitudes towards regulation
Rick Laible's story
Chip Pigman's story
Tim Huls's story
John Cook's story
Montana, model of the world.
pt. 2. Past societies
2. Twilight at Easter
The quarry's mysteries
Easter's geography and history
People and food
Chiefs, clans, and commoners
Platforms and statues
Carving, transporting, erecting
The vanished forest
Consequences for society
Europeans and explanations
Why was Easter fragile?
Easter as metaphor
3. The last people alive : Pitcairn and Henderson Islands
Pitcairn before the Bounty
Three dissimilar islands
Trade
The movie's ending
4. The ancient ones : the Anasazi and their neighbors
Desert farmers
Tree rings
Agricultural strategies
Chaco's problems and packrats
Regional integration
Chaco's decline and end
Chaco's message
5. The Maya collapses
Mysteries of lost cities
The Maya environment
Maya agriculture
Maya history
Copán
Complexities of collapses
Wars and droughts
Collapse in the southern lowlands
The Maya message
6. The Viking prelude and fugues
Experiments in the Atlantic
The Viking explosion
Autocatalysis
Viking agriculture
Iron
Viking chiefs
Viking religion
Orkneys, Shetlands, Faeroes
Iceland's environment
Iceland's history
Iceland in context
Vinland
7. Norse Greenland's flowering
Europe's outpost
Greenland's climate today
Climate in the past
Native plants and animals
Norse settlement
Farming
Hunting and fishing
An integrated economy
Society
Trade with Europe
Self-image
8. Norse Greenland's end
Introduction to the end
Deforestation
Soil and turf damage
The Inuit's predecessors
Inuit subsistence
Inuit/Norse relations
The end
Ultimate causes of the end
9. Opposite paths to success
Bottom up, top down
New Guinea highlands
Tikopia
Tokugawa problems
Tokugawa solutions
Why Japan succeeded
Other successes.
pt. 3. Modern societies
10. Malthus in Africa : Rwanda's genocide
A dilemma
Events in Rwanda
More than ethnic hatred
Buildup in Kanama
Explosion in Kanama
Why it happened
11. One island, two peoples, two histories : the Dominican Republic and Haiti
Differences
Histories
Causes of divergence
Dominican environmental impacts
Balaguer
The Dominican environment today
The future
12. China, lurching giant
China's significance
Background
Air, water, soil
Habitat, species, megaprojects
Consequences
Connections
The future
13. "Mining" Australia
Australia's significance
Soils
Water
Distance
Early history
Imported values
Trade and immigration
Land degradation
Other environmental problems
Signs of hope and change.
pt. 4. Practical lessons
14. Why do some societies make disastrous decisions?
Road map for success
Failure to anticipate
Failure to perceive
Rational bad behavior
Disastrous values
Other irrational failures
Unsuccessful solutions
Signs of hope
15. Big businesses and the environment : different conditions, different outcomes
Resource extraction
Two oil fields
Oil company motives
Hardrock mining operations
Mining company motives
Differences among mining companies
The logging industry
Forest Stewardship Council
The seafood industry
Businesses and the public
16. The world as a polder : what does it all mean to us today?
Introduction
The most serious problems
If we don't solve them ...
Life in Los Angeles
One-liner objections
The past and the present
Reasons for hope.
From the Book
Prologue : a tale of two farms
Part 1: Modern Montana : Under Montana's big sky
Part 2: Past societies : Twilight at Easter
The last people alive: Pitcairn and Henderson Islands
The ancient ones: the Anasazi and their neighbors
The Maya collapses
The Viking prelude and fugues
Norse Greenland's flowering
Norse Greenland's end
Opposite paths to success
Part 3: Modern societies : Malthus in Africa: Rwanda's genocide
One island, two peoples, two histories: the Dominican Republic and Haiti
China, lurching giant
"Mining" Australia
Part 4: Practical lessons : Why do some societies make disastrous decisions?
Big businesses and the environment: different conditions, different outcomes
The world as a polder: what does it all mean to us today?
Afterword : Angkor's rise and fall.
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More Details
Contributors
ISBN
9780670033379
9780143057185
9780143036555
9780143117001
9780143057185
9780143036555
9780143117001
Accelerated Reader
UG
Level 12.3, 48 Points
Level 12.3, 48 Points
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