Mid-point entry - "Collapse"

I have been so far enjoying this book, despite the fact that it is quite depressing (apparently the author tells about ways that we might be able to prevent collapses in our society similar to the historical ones he discusses later on in the book, but, at this point, it simply seems as though we are all doomed to an endless cycle of complete destruction and building our societies up again from scratch, which is a depressing though not exactly startling thought.

I particularly enjoyed the section on Easter Island. Though I had read many years ago about the mysterious fall of the society there and been intrigued by it, I had never before had a clear understanding of why exactly it happened. Over the course of reading this book, I feel that I do understand why it happened. I also have the sense (though I'm not sure how accurate it is) that Mr. Diamond's hypotheses on Easter Island are ones that have never before been proposed, at least not in quite this manner. As with "Guns, Germs and Steel", I have the sense while reading this book that it is a monumental work that reinvents contemporary knowledge of the subject. It feels odd to be reading such a thing on a subject that I know relatively little about, and it is a very odd look into the world of ecological studies.

I have not yet reached the section on Greenland and Vinland, which I am excited about reading. Hopefully those sections (about subjects that I know significantly more than the other topics yet discussed in the book) will not disappoint me!

So far, I would recommend this book to someone interested in the subject. But I would warn them that the book seems somewhat slow at first, and the section on Montana has a Harold Bloom-esque sense of self importance to it, at least in my opinion.