Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (97 page)

Japan and Italy is already below the replacement rate, such that their exist
ing populations (i.e., not counting immigrants) will soon begin shrinking.
As for impact per person, the world would not even have to decrease its cur
rent consumption rates of timber products or of seafood: those rates could be sustained or even increased, if the world's forests and fisheries were
properly managed.

My remaining cause for hope is another consequence of the globalized
modern world's interconnectedness. Past societies lacked archaeologists and television. While the Easter Islanders were busy deforesting the highlands of
their overpopulated island for agricultural plantations in the 1400s, they
had no way of knowing that, thousands of miles to the east and west at the same time, Greenland Norse society and the Khmer Empire were simulta
neously in terminal decline, while the Anasazi had collapsed a few centuries
earlier, Classic Maya society a few more centuries before that, and Myce-nean Greece 2,000 years before that. Today, though, we turn on our tele
vision sets or radios or pick up our newspapers, and we see, hear, or read about what happened in Somalia or Afghanistan a few hours earlier. Our
television documentaries and books show us in graphic detail why the
Easter Islanders, Classic Maya, and other past societies collapsed. Thus, we
have the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of distant peoples and past
peoples. That's an opportunity that no past society enjoyed to such a de
gree. My hope in writing this book has been that enough people will choose
to profit from that opportunity to make a difference.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I acknowledge with gratitude the big debts that I owe to many people for
their contributions to this book. With these friends and colleagues, I shared
the pleasure and excitement of exploring the ideas presented here.

A special badge of heroism was earned by six friends who read and cri
tiqued the entire manuscript: Julio Betancourt, Stewart Brand, my wife
Marie Cohen, Paul Ehrlich, Alan Grinnell, and Charles Redman. That same
badge of heroism, and more, are due to my editors Wendy Wolf at Penguin
Group (New York) and Stefan McGrath and Jon Turney at Viking Penguin
(London), and to my agents John Brockman and Katinka Matson, who be
sides reading the whole manuscript helped in myriad ways to shape this
book from its initial conception through all stages of production. Gretchen
Daily, Larry Linden, Ivan Barkhorn, and Bob Waterman similarly read and
critiqued the concluding chapters on the modern world.

Michelle Fisher-Casey typed the whole manuscript, many times. Bo-
ratha Yeang tracked down books and articles, Ruth Mandel tracked down
photographs, and Jeffrey Ward prepared the maps.

I presented much of the material of this book to two successive classes of
undergraduates at the University of California at Los Angeles, where I teach
in the Geography Department. I also offered a mini-course as a visitor to a
graduate seminar in the Department of Anthropological Sciences at Stan
ford University. As willing guinea pigs, those students and colleagues con
tributed fresh and stimulating outlooks.

Earlier versions of some material of seven chapters appeared as articles
in
Discover
magazine, the
New York Review of Books, Harper's
magazine, and
Nature.
In particular, Chapter 12 (on China) is an expanded version of a
joint article that Jianguo (Jack) Liu and I wrote, that Jack drafted, and for
which he gathered the information.

I also thank other friends and other colleagues in connection with each chapter. They variously arranged my visits to countries where they lived or
conducted research, guided me in the field, patiently shared their experi
ence with me, sent me articles and references, critiqued my chapter draft, or
did several or all of these things. They generously gave me many days or
weeks of their time. My debt to them is enormous. They include the follow
ing people, listed by chapter:

Chapter 1.
Allen Bjergo, Marshall and Tonia and Seth Bloom, Diane
Boyd, John and Pat Cook, John Day, Gary Decker, John and Jill Eliel, Emil
Erhardt, Stan Falkow, Bruce Farling, Roxa French, Hank Goetz, Pam Gouse,
Roy Grant, Josette Hackett, Dick and Jack Hirschy, Tim and Trudy Huls,
Bob Jirsa, Rick and Frankie Laible, Jack Losensky, Land Lindbergh, Joyce
McDowell, Chris Miller, Chip Pigman, Harry Poett, Steve Powell, Jack Ward
Thomas, Lucy Tompkins, Pat Vaughn, Marilyn Wildee, and Vern and Maria
Woolsey.

Chapter 2.
Jo Anne Van Tilburg, Barry Rolett, Claudio Cristino, Sonia Haoa, Chris Stevenson, Edmundo Edwards, Catherine Orliac, and Patricia
Vargas.

Chapter 3.
Marshall Weisler.

Chapter 4.
Julio Betancourt, Jeff Dean, Eric Force, Gwinn Vivian, and
Steven LeBlanc.

Chapter 5.
David Webster, Michael Coe, Bill Turner, Mark Brenner,
Richardson Gill, and Richard Hansen.

Chapter 6.
Gunnar Karlsson, Orri Vesteinsson, Jesse Byock, Christian
Keller, Thomas McGovern, Paul Buckland, Anthony Newton, and Ian
Simpson.

Chapters 7 and 8.
Christian Keller, Thomas McGovern, Jette Arneborg,
Georg Nygaard, and Richard Alley.

Chapter 9.
Simon Haberle, Patrick Kirch, and Conrad Totman.

Chapter 10.
Rene Lemarchand, David Newbury, Jean-Philippe Platteau,
James Robinson, Vincent Smith.

Chapter 11.
Andres Ferrer Benzo, Walter Cordero, Richard Turits, Neici
Zeller, Luis Arambilet, Mario Bonetti, Luis Carvajal, Roberto and Angel Cassa, Carlos Garcia, Raimondo Gonzalez, Roberto Rodriguez Mansfield, Eleuterio Martinez, Nestor Sanchez Sr., Nestor Sanchez Jr., Ciprian Soler,
Rafael Emilio Yunen, Steve Latta, James Robinson, and John Terborgh.

Chapter 12.
Jianguo (Jack) Liu.

Chapter 13.
Tim Flannery, Alex Baynes, Patricia Feilman, Bill Mcintosh,
Pamela Parker, Harry Recher, Mike Young, Michael Archer, K. David
Bishop, Graham Broughton, Senator Bob Brown, Judy Clark, Peter Copley, George Ganf, Peter Gell, Stefan Hajkowicz, Bob Hill, Nalini Klopf, David
Paton, Marilyn Renfrew, Prue Tucker, and Keith Walker.

Chapter 14.
Elinor Ostrom, Marco Janssen, Monique Borgerhoff Mul
der, Jim Dewar, and Michael Intrilligator.

Chapter 15.
Jim Kuipers, Bruce Farling, Scott Burns, Bruce Cabarle, Ja-

son Clay, Ned Daly, Katherine Bostick, Ford Denison, Stephen D'Esposito,
Francis Grant-Suttie, Toby Kiers, Katie Miller, Michael Ross, and many peo
ple in the business world.

Chapter 16.
Rudy Drent, Kathryn Fuller, Terry Garcia, Francis Lanting, Richard Mott, Theunis Piersma, William Reilly, and Russell Train.

Support for these studies was generously provided by the W. Alton Jones
Foundation, Jon Kannegaard, Michael Korney, the Eve and Harvey Ma-
sonek and Samuel F. Heyman and Eve Gruber Heyman 1981 Trust Under
graduate Research Scholars Fund, Sandra McPeak, the Alfred P. Sloan
Foundation, the Summit Foundation, the Weeden Foundation, and the Winslow Foundation.

FURTHER
READINGS

These suggestions of some selected references are for those interested in reading further. Rather than devote space to extensive bibliographies, I have favored citing
recent publications that do provide comprehensive listings of the earlier literature.
In addition, I cite some key books and articles. A journal title (in italics) is followed
by the volume number, followed after a colon by the first and last page numbers,
and then by the year of publication in parentheses.

Prologue

Influential comparative studies of collapses of ancient advanced societies around
the world include Joseph Tainter,
The Collapse of Complex Societies
(Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1988), and Norman Yoffee and George Cowgill, eds.,
The Collapse of Ancient States and Civilizations
(Tucson: University of Arizona
Press, 1988). Books focusing specifically on environmental impacts of past societies, or on the role of such impacts in collapses, include Clive Ponting,
A Green
History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations
(New
York: Penguin, 1991); Charles Redman,
Human Impact on Ancient Environ
ments
(Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1999); D. M. Kammen, K. R. Smith,
K. T. Rambo, and M.A.K. Khalil, eds.,
Preindustrial Human Environmental Impacts:
Are There Lessons for Global Change Science and Policy?
(an issue of the journal
Chemosphere,
volume 29, no. 5, September 1994); and Charles Redman, Steven
James, Paul Fish, and J. Daniel Rogers, eds.,
The Archaeology of Global Change: The
Impact of Humans on Their Environment
(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books,
2004). Among books discussing the role of climate change in the context of com
parative studies of past societies are three by Brian Fagan:
Floods, Famines, and Em
perors: El Nino and the Fate of Civilizations
(New York: Basic Books, 1999);
The
Little Ice Age
(New York: Basic Books, 2001); and
The Long Summer: How Climate
Changed Civilization
(New York: Basic Books, 2004).

Comparative studies of relations between the rises and the falls of states include Peter Turchin,
Historical Dynamics: Why States Rise and Fall
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003), and Jack Goldstone,
Revolution and Rebellion in
the Early Modern World
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991).

Chapter 1

Histories of the state of Montana include Joseph Howard,
Montana: High, Wide,
and Handsome
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1943); K. Ross Toole,
Montana: An Uncommon Land
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1959); K. Ross Toole,

20th-century Montana: A State of Extremes
(Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press, 1972); and Michael Malone, Richard Roeder, and William Lang,
Montana: A History of Two Centuries,
revised edition (Seattle: University of Washington Press,
1991). Russ Lawrence offered an illustrated book on the Bitterroot Valley,
Mon
tana's Bitterroot Valley
(Stevensville, Mont.: Stoneydale Press, 1991). Bertha Francis,
The Land of Big Snows
(Butte, Mont.: Caxton Printers, 1955) gives an account of the
history of the Big Hole Basin. Thomas Power,
Lost Landscapes and Failed Economies:
The Search for Value of Place
(Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1996), and Thomas
Power and Richard Barrett,
Post-Cowboy Economics: Pay and Prosperity in the New
American West
(Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2001), discuss the economic prob
lems of Montana and the U.S. Mountain West. Two books on the history and im
pacts of mining in Montana are David Stiller,
Wounding the West: Montana, Mining,
and the Environment
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000) and Michael
Malone,
The Battle for Butte: Mining and Politics on the Northern Frontier, 1864
—1906
(Helena, Mont.: Montana Historical Society Press, 1981). Stephen Pyne's books on forest fires include
Fire in America: A Cultural History of Wildland and Rural Fire
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982) and
Year of the Fires: The Story of
the Great Fires of 1910
(New York: Viking Penguin, 2001). An account of fires focused on the western United States by two authors, one of them a resident of the Bitterroot Valley, is Stephen Arno and Steven Allison-Bunnell,
Flames in our Forests: Disaster or
Renewal?
(Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2002). Harsh Bais et al., "Allelopathy and exotic plant invasion: from molecules and genes to species interactions"
(Science
301:1377-1380 (2003)) show that the means by which Spotted Knapweed displaces native plants include secreting from its roots a toxin to which the weed itself is impervious. Impacts of ranching on the U.S. West in general, including Montana, are discussed by Lynn Jacobs,
Waste of the West: Public Lands Ranching
(Tucson: Lynn Jacobs, 1991).

Current information on some Montana problems discussed in my chapter can
be obtained from Web sites and e-mail addresses of organizations concerned with these problems. Some of these organizations, and their addresses, are as follows:
Bitterroot Land Trust:
www.BitterRootLandTrust.org