Is The Use Of The Arguments In The Book Collapse By Jared Diamond

In Jared Diamond’s book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed the central argument is that “the Mayan society destroyed itself by the over exploitation of its own resources.” Diamond’s argument is logical but some of the evidence is not convincing. Diamond’s argument is agreeable in the sense that the Mayan society overexploited their resources. Where I do not see an agreement with Diamond’s argument is with some of the premises and other evidence stated in his book. Diamond makes five points or “strands” as he refers to the explanations for the collapse of the Mayan society (Diamond). The first strand states that the overabundant population stripped themselves of resources. I see this as an agreeable premise for the conclusion (Diamond). It is agreeable in the evidence

Diamond makes a very convincing argument for this topic. I would add that strand one and strand two could interrelate with one another in the sense that with the growing population leading to more resources being used, when the agricultural techniques are insufficient then there will be less land for use but more of a need for the land. This idea is logical and sensible. The third strand or premise outlines the internal warfare between the Mayan people (Diamond). I do not agree with this full premise. The parts that can be seen as logical are the evidences found the warfare would lead to less land and an increase in competition of resources. The portion I do not find agreeable is the details that the warfare actually happened and for the reasons why the wars happened. Diamond provides no first hand knowledge of this premise only a prediction based on conclusions from other societies. The fourth strand is climate change (Diamond). There is sufficient evidence of droughts that occurred during the span of this society but no evidence that this was the leading and final cause of the collapse. The climate varied based on the geographical location of the sub societies