Books

Short works

Books : reviews

Jared Diamond.
The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee.
Vintage. 1991

Jared Diamond.
Guns, Germs, and Steel.
Vintage. 1997

Jared Diamond.
Collapse: how societies choose to fail or survive.
Penguin. 2005

Jared Diamond, James A. Robinson.
Natural Experiments of History.
Belknap Press. 2010

Jared Diamond.
The World Until Yesterday.
Penguin. 2012

Over the past 500 years, the West achieved global dominance, but do Westerners necessarily have better ideas about how to raise children, care for the elderly, or simply live well?

In a sweeping journey around the globe, Jared Diamond explores how tribal people approach essential human problems, from health and diet to conflict resolution and language, and discovers that they have much to teach us. These traditional societies offer an extraordinary window into how our ancestors lived for most of human history – until virtually yesterday, in evolutionary terms.

Jared Diamond.
Upheaval: how nations cope with crisis and change.
Allen Lane. 2019

In his landmark international bestsellers Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse, Jared Diamond transformed our understanding of what makes civilizations rise and fall. Now, at a time when crises are erupting around the world, he reveals what makes certain nations resilient in the face of tremendous upheaval.

In a riveting journey into the recent past, he traces how six countries have survived defining catastrophes – from the forced opening of Japan to the Soviet invasion of Finland to Chile’s brutal Pinochet regime – through selective change, a coping mechanism more commonly associated with personal trauma. Looking ahead to the gravest threats we face in the future, he asks, what can we learn from the lessons of the past?