Skeptic Project

Collapse porn indeed. Surprised they never mentioned Nostradamus. *Le Gasp!*

And if I may mention, a MUCH better book: http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Succeed-Revised/dp/0143117009/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313867243&sr=8-1

Actually, I recently read Jared Diamond's "Collapse" and I didn't like it very much.

His research is very shoddy and his reasoning is pretty flimsy at times. Basically the argument he's making is "environmental determinism" which, as a historical doctrine, was discredited in the early 80s. Very few environmental historians regard Diamond as a good representative of their doctrine.

Example: in the chapter on the Norse Greenland colony, Diamond makes much of the fact that the Norse evidently didn't eat fish in Greenland. He speculates as to why this is and comes up with an utterly ludicrous theory that the first guy who established the colony got some bad fish, threw up and his subsequent aversion to fish somehow got passed down into the entire society as a societal taboo. There's not a single shred of evidence for this theory, and it strikes me (and most historians I know who have read the book) as utterly laughable.

He also doesn't use primary sources very much which is a hallmark of a lazy historian. All he's doing is synthesizing secondary sources.

This book had a lot of popular appeal, but it has very little credibility in academia.

[/snobby rant]