Jared Diamond. Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis
Jared Diamond. Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis
Hardcover – May 7, 2019
by Jared Diamond
A "riveting and illuminating" (Yuval Noah Harari) new theory of how and why some nations recover from trauma and others don't, by the Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of the landmark bestsellers Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse.
In his international bestsellers Guns, Germs and Steel andCollapse, Jared Diamond transformed our understanding of what makes civilizations rise and fall. Now, in his third book in this monumental trilogy, he reveals how successful nations recover from crises while adopting selective changes -- a coping mechanism more commonly associated with individuals recovering from personal crises.
Diamond compares how six countries have survived recent upheavals -- ranging from the forced opening of Japan by U.S. Commodore Perry's fleet, to the Soviet Union's attack on Finland, to a murderous coup or countercoup in Chile and Indonesia, to the transformations of Germany and Austria after World War Two. Because Diamond has lived and spoken the language in five of these six countries, he can present gut-wrenching histories experienced firsthand. These nations coped, to varying degrees, through mechanisms such as acknowledgment of responsibility, painfully honest self-appraisal, and learning from models of other nations. Looking to the future, Diamond examines whether the United States, Japan, and the whole world are successfully coping with the grave crises they currently face. Can we learn from lessons of the past?
Adding a psychological dimension to the in-depth history, geography, biology, and anthropology that mark all of Diamond's books, Upheaval reveals factors influencing how both whole nations and individual people can respond to big challenges. The result is a book epic in scope, but also his most personal book yet.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"Jared Diamond does it again: another rich, original, and fascinating chapter in the human saga, this one on how societies have extricated themselves from wicked crises-with vital lessons for our difficult times."―Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of The Better Angels of Our Nature and Enlightenment Now
"A riveting and illuminating tour of how nations deal with crises -- which might hopefully help humanity as a whole deal with our present global crisis."―Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century
"A new book by Jared Diamond is always a rare and welcome gift. I read them all as part of a single mosaic that, could it ever be fully completed, would finally reveal us to ourselves with haunting insight and clarity, as well as the planet we have the privilege to inhabit. Each book adds more interlocking pieces to that fascinating mosaic. In Upheaval, I find eye-opening lessons about the political and psychological forces that lead to crisis and then resilience, how individuals and nations experience trauma in similar ways, and what that suggests about our future and the world's. Fortunately for us, Diamond's remarkable gift for learning languages has allowed him to live under the surface of various cultures throughout his life, traveling extensively, both mentally and physically, while witnessing many dramatic personal and national upheavals firsthand. His ability to weigh them all with a compassionate heart, a keen eye and an eloquent pen have made him the masterful observer of the human pageant and the important man of conscience that he is. I'm deeply grateful for this wise and beautiful book."―Diane Ackerman, author of The Zookeeper's Wife
"Jared Diamond is one of the deepest thinkers and most authoritative writers of our time -- arguably of all time -- and Upheaval proves his prescience in analyzing historical crises within nations at a time when national crises have erupted around the world. It is also his most personal work, sharing with readers his own crises, along with his intimate familiarity with many countries that have experienced upheavals, and then drawing out lessons of crisis management for nations today and in the future. No scientist has ever won the Nobel Prize for literature. Jared Diamond should be the first."
―Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine and author of Heavens on Earth
"I read Upheaval with appreciation for its historical sweep... If the world is going to hell in a handbasket, Diamond has not given up hope that we can change course."―Richard Rhodes, Nature
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About the Author
Jared Diamond, a noted polymath, is Professor of Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles. Among his many awards are the U.S. National Medal of Science, Japan's Cosmos Prize, a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, a Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, and election to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. He is the author of the international best-selling books Guns, Germs, and Steel, Collapse, Why Is Sex Fun?, The World until Yesterday, and The Third Chimpanzee, and is the presenter of TV documentary series based on three of those books.
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Hardcover: 512 pages
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Aran Joseph CanesTop Contributor: Philosophy
TOP 100 REVIEWER
2.0 out of 5 stars
A Paradigm Shifting Book?May 8, 2019
Upheaval aims to be a paradigm shifting book. Coming from the author of Guns, Germs and Steel this is by no means an unrealistic goal. In Guns, Germs and Steel Dr. Diamond attempted to explain much of cultural history and differences as the result of geographic variance. While not uncontroversial, it did spawn a large discussion on the role of geography in human history and an acknowledgement of the previous neglect of its importance.
So when Diamond asserts that he wants to generate research for the next several decades on the factors that lead nations to overcome crises he is not speaking from mere hubris. However, I found Upheaval to be largely an exercise in loose analogies and long narratives with few testable hypotheses. While pleasant reading it is not the epochal work the author intended.
Diamond takes twelve principles from the well-established field of crisis response in psychology and applies them analogously to seven nation states in which he has legitimate subject matter expertise. But because most of us do not, he spends most of the book relating little known areas of world history such as Finland’s resistance to Russian imperialism or Meiji Japan’s reaction to modernization.
Again, while interesting, these histories are not paradigm shifting material. And the extent to which the 12 rules of personal crises correspond to national crises is not well established. That the last third of the book offers a rather standard liberal perspective on solving contemporary American crises is no help. Partisan gridlock (fueled by the Tea Party), restrictive voter registration laws and lack of spending on education are only crises if you think that government has the solutions to the nation’s problems. Those coming from a more libertarian or fiscally conservative perspective will be grinding their teeth.
In short, while an impressive survey of modern history, I did not find it in the same league as some of the author’s earlier works. Recommended only for those who stand in long lines at Barnes and Noble to get the next book by Diamond. Enjoyable but not paradigm shifting. Read if you want to judge for yourself whether Diamond has produced another masterpiece.
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Charles
TOP 100 REVIEWER
4.0 out of 5 stars
May 7, 2019
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
Jared Diamond, famous for “Guns, Germs, and Steel” and its environmental analysis of civilizational rise, and his later book “Collapse,” here offers a personalized take on the civilizational stage between rise and collapse: crisis. For the most part, this book is a mixed success. It offers too much about Jared Diamond, and too much about politics, and too little about actual civilizations (although at least the author avoids mentioning current politics, to his credit). Still, it offers an interesting framework.
The organizing trope of this book is to compare civilizational crisis to personal crisis, complete with using “outcome predictors” used to analyze the latter to analyze the former. In the same way we must often change ourselves, Diamond says, so must nations. This dialectic results in a blending of old and new, if it works and is done right, and allows nations to deal with changed circumstances. And nations it is—Diamond is not interested in theories that suggest the disappearance of the nation state, and while he’s no conservative, he’s not interested in radical pro-immigration politics, identity politics, intersectionality, or any of such modern political ideologies.
In this way Diamond examines a wide range of historical crisis, including the Russo-Finnish War (the “Winter War”), the forcible opening of Japan by the West, Chile’s 1973 wars, post-1945 Germany, and Australia from its colonial origins to the present day. He is at pains to describe all the languages and personal experiences he has had in most of these countries. In all of them, he discusses the crises they had, their commonalities and differences, and how they were resolved—which they were, since all of these countries have had successful arcs, to a greater or lesser degree, since the crises discussed.
Then Diamond turns to current crises, taking in turn Japan (economy and demographics); the United States (polarization and inequality); and the world as a whole (nuclear weapons, climate change, and again, inequality). He finishes with thoughts on the future, including interesting thoughts on the role of leaders. I’m not sure any of this is earthshattering, but, at a minimum, it’s a new way to look at crisis.
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Jason Park
5.0 out of 5 starsA thorough examination of times of national crisis and what societies have done to overcomeMay 7, 2019
Format: Kindle Edition
Jared Diamond, a former-physiologist-turned-geographer, has already penned a perennial bestseller in his Pulitzer Prize-winning Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997) by writing on world history. With his new book, Upheaval (available everywhere May 7), it looks like he might have done it again. If Guns, Germs, and Steel is about the birth and growth of human societies and his 2011 book Collapse is about the death or near-death of those societies, Upheaval is about a turning point, a mid-life crisis, in a nation that determines its course for the future.
Diamond uses a couple of structures in Upheaval that serve the reader well. First, he compares national crises to individual crises. He employs a crisis therapy framework that consists of 12 factors that determine how well an individual will cope with a crisis, then adapts it to analyze how nations respond to crises throughout history. I was skeptical of this tactic at first, as it seemed that nations’ responses to crisis would not be comparable to individual experiences, especially his comparison of an individual’s ego strength to, at the societal level, nationalism (a theme to which we will return later). However, the framework as a whole makes a lot of sense, there seems to be a lot of truth to his analysis, and it served as a helpful organizational device throughout the book.
A second structure was Diamond’s strategy in using nations in which he has personal experience. Each of the seven nations he explores (Finland, Japan, Chile, Indonesia, Germany, Australia, and the United States) are nations in which he has lived for a significant amount of time, made friends, and been enmeshed in the culture. I questioned this too at first because I feared that Diamond would be relying too much on personal experience, but this was not the case. He relied heavily on historical facts and figures, adding in personal anecdotes for a little flourish when helpful.
Given these two structures, I don’t think it is technically correct to call Upheaval a history book as much as, I don’t know, a practical exploration in social studies? If that sounds denigrating, I don’t mean it in any way, and I hope Diamond would agree with me. It is not straightforward history, but instead uses historical examples to explore how nations have dealt with crisis and how they can successfully do so again in the future. The goal is broader than a standard history book.
As a world history teacher, however, I truly enjoyed the history of Diamond’s selected nations is relayed in an approachable style that fully explains and informs. I thought the chapter on the Meiji Restoration in Japan was terrific, I feel like I gained a lot of perspective on post-War Germany, modern Australia, Indonesia, and the Pinochet dictatorship of Chile, and I learned more about Finnish history than I thought I would ever know. I literally just included every one of the selected nations except the United States in that sentence without trying to, if that tells you how balanced the book proves itself to be. I couldn’t even leave one out when writing about how good enjoyable the history is.
In the final part of the book, Diamond spends time analyzing modern, unsolved crises in Japan, the United States, and the world as whole. I think he made good arguments here whether or not I agree with them, so I enjoyed it significantly if also a little bit less than the historical analyses. I would compare this section a little with Hans Rosling’s Factfulness, with a slightly favorable edge to Rosling because of his style.
I can’t speak to how similar Diamond’s analyses are in this book as compared to his others because I haven’t read them, but as a world history teacher I have both heard a lot about and read a lot of excerpts from Guns, Germs, and Steel. It so easily blends popular and academic audiences that it can be found on the Pulitzer Prize list and in a large share of AP World History syllabi while also being available in tiny airport bookstores around the country (the definition of a super-popular book, IMO). Guns, Germs, and Steel is actually rather polarizing in the world history community, the chief criticism coming from those who claim Diamond veers into what is called “geographic determinism”, or the idea that a nation’s geography determines its fate in history. Taken to its extreme, this idea is harmful and can reinforce prejudicial ideas about race. Having not read Guns, I cannot speak to that specific criticism. However, I found no whiff of geographic determinism (beyond Diamond’s fascinating descriptions of nations’ real geographic advantages and disadvantages) in Upheaval.
The one criticism I have, however, is in Diamond’s analysis of nationalism. Nationalism is one of his predictive factors as to whether a nation will successfully navigate a crisis, and I won’t argue with that because he makes several good points and gives many historical examples throughout the book. However, there is no larger examination of the excesses of nationalism. Even in Indonesia, which he describes as having maybe the strongest national identity of the group, he doesn’t draw any connection from this national identity to the genocide perpetrated by those who were forging it. I am not anti-nationalist, but I think a book developing these themes must connect them together. I noticed the disparity in a passage from the chapter on Meiji Japan (again, a chapter worth the price of the book by itself). Diamond points out the paradox in Japan’s successful military expansion under the Meiji Restoration of 1868 and their blundering, unsuccessful military expansion starting in 1937 and continuing through World War II. How could the same nation make so many mistakes when they had proved so capable less than a century earlier? Diamond writes:
"There are numerous reasons: the successful war against Russia, disillusionment with the Treaty of Versailles, the collapse of Japan’s export-led economic growth in 1929, and others. But one additional reason is especially relevant to this book: a difference between Meiji-Era Japan and the Japan of the 1930’s and 1940’s, in knowledge and capacity for honest self-appraisal on the part of Japanese leaders. In the Meiji Era many Japanese, including leaders of Japan’s armed forces, had made visits abroad. They thereby obtained detailed first-hand knowledge of China, the U.S., Germany, and Russia and their armies and navies. They could make an honest appraisal of Japan’s strength compared to the strengths of those other countries. Then, Japan attacked only when it could be confident of success. In contrast, in the 1930’s the Japanese army on the Asian mainland was commanded by young hothead officers who didn’t have experience abroad (unless in Nazi Germany), and who didn’t obey orders from experienced Japanese leaders in Tokyo. Those young hotheads didn’t know first-hand the industrial and military strength of the U.S. and of Japan’s other prospective opponents. They didn’t understand American psychology, and they considered the U.S. a nation of shopkeepers who wouldn’t fight."
There is nothing wrong with this assessment. Diamond is right about the reasons he lists at the beginning of the passage. I think he leans a little bit too heavily on the “young hotheads” argument, but there is an underlying cause that he is missing. Why had Japanese leaders closed themselves off and not been overseas except for Nazi Germany? Why did they suddenly lack the capacity for “honest self appraisal”? Why did they abandon the strategy of attacking “only when it could be confident of success”? In short, I and a lot of other historians blame the excesses of nationalism. This is connected to the abuses of Koreans and Chinese that Diamond mentions elsewhere in the book, and the connection between nationalism and imperialism is clear, especially in Japan’s case. Japan’s brand of nationalism specifically, which caught fire during the Meiji Restoration, was about intense devotion to the state. This directly led to some of the bad decisions in 1937 and especially in 1945, when intense devotion to the cause of Japanese imperialism caused Japanese leaders to abandon all reason and jump into a war with Britain, Australia, the Soviet Union, China, Korea, and the United States with no hope of defeating all of them at once. This brand of nationalism was also connected to their “no surrender” policy that culminated in the American decision to drop two atomic bombs in order to avoid a costly but almost certainly successful invasion of the Japanese mainland. (By the way, most belligerent nations would have surrendered after the firebombing of Tokyo or at least after one atomic bomb. But not Japan.) This is even more effectively observed in Hiroo Onoda, a 2nd lieutenant in the Japanese army who continued fighting in the Philippines for almost 30 years until finally emerging from the jungle in 1974. He thought the war was still going the entire time. For more on this story and its connection with the Japanese psyche in the years leading up to and during World War II, I highly recommend the most recent couple of episodes of the podcast Hardcore History (already 8 hours on the subject with more to come) named “Supernova in the East”. Dan Carlin, the host, makes the point I am making here, that Japanese nationalism cannot be divorced from the bad decisions of the 1930s and 40s. Diamond never sways into criticism of nationalism, on the other hand, and I think it was a big miss. Nevertheless, it did not detract from my enjoyment of the Meiji Restoration chapter.
If I had to make a prediction, I think Jared Diamond’s Upheaval will be a hit. It might not get as massive a reception as Guns, Germs, and Steel, but it is so well-written and approachable that it is bound to spread by word of mouth. He has also chosen some fascinating moments from modern history that anyone not well-versed in world history probably hasn’t heard of. Even those like me who teach world history probably still haven’t read about these events deeply. But they deserve discussion and analysis, and Diamond provides that. Whether you know someone in Finland or Indonesia, Chile or Australia, Germany or Japan, or whether you just want to know more about how nations cope with crisis, this book is for you.
I received this book as an eARC courtesy of Little, Brown and Company and NetGalley, but my opinions are my own.
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Helton
5.0 out of 5 starsMore Great Stuff from DiamondMay 8, 2019
Format: Kindle Edition
In an effort to help the reader to be more aware of (mostly negative) impending changes to our planet in the coming decades, Diamond presents several examples from history that illustrate how various countries responded to crises (both internal and external) and carefully lays out what we can mine from these events.
Comparing these trials to a list of factors at the end of each chapter, there's ample opportunity to sum up what you've just been introduced to, and another round in the epilogue to tie it all together. As you'd hope from the author, it resists being an admirable-but-knotted mess of useful info you'd have to just about convert to PDF to better organize.
He'll help you realize that it's not such a grand idea to issue judgment on a country for what they've done, as there are two sides to every story, right? The exposure of the foolish pride of several countries (yep, including the U.S.) and how these qualities point toward certain disaster (though not without the occasional benefit).
You'll hear about Finland, Germany, Indonesia, Chile, Japan (2 times!), and more. Each chapter is enlightening in its own way, sometimes compelling an audible "whoa"; other times, a chill down the spine, as some of these turnouts aren't too pretty, and match up with current governmental trajectories to a closer degree than is comfortable.
I think it's a more loose book than COLLAPSE or GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL, but that's not a problem--it's just a slightly different flavor. I still came out on the other side of this feeling better informed, more in tune with history and the world, and ready to keep on learnin'.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for the advance read.
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Michael Griswold
VINE VOICE
4.0 out of 5 starsCrisis Anatomy
May 7, 2019
Format: Hardcover
*I received an electronic galley of this title from netgalley.com and the publisher for reviewing purposes*
Jared Diamond is known as a man of big broad sweeping ideas. Upheaval sets out to answer a very pressing question: Why are some nations able to weather crisis, while other nations spasm into a cycle of violence, miscalculation, and eventual ruin to various degrees. While I didn’t get into it right away because I was sort of confused by the whole notion of how an individual crisis and the crisis of an entire nation could be linked, it becomes much clearer when one sees the crisis factors in action in the case study content.
But at its core, I suspect that Upheaval is really about the notion that how nations weather crises depends on the individuals both in positions of leadership and the collective citizenry who both vote for leaders and in crisis can spur leaders to action for both good and bad. A lot of what comes up in this book is fairly sensible like a leader needs to get a read on the situation including the social and geo-political things that may either help or constrain him.
Perhaps unfortunately there is no “if you do this in a crisis you will be fine.” Every crisis is a different situation governed by both possibilities and constraints and you are always subject to the whims of the moment from the other party since many conflicts cover international state to state conflict. But what we might be able to do thanks to the work of Jared Diamond in Upheaval is see what signs are present in our own nations and encourage leaders to act accordingly.
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H. T. Price
1.0 out of 5 starsThis is a poorly conceived mess.May 13, 2019
Format: Hardcover
Diamond has written a book about a series of countries he has lived in, using a theory of trauma from psychology, I cannot imagine a less scientific, more speculative book. The one thing that holds his evidence together are countries he has lived in. Great. This is the lowest form of pop science for a collapsing world. I was disappointed and a bit shocked. I do not recommend. How an author of his stature comes up with a work this weak is the question that the book truly raises.
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”An example of presumed lack of models is provided by the U.S. today, for which belief in American exceptionalism translates into the widespread belief that the U.S. has nothing to learn from Canada and Western European democracies: not even from their solutions to issues that arise for every country, such as health care, education, immigration, prisons, and security in old age--issues about which most Americans are dissatisfied with our American solutions but still refuse to learn from Canadian or Western European solutions.”
It has been a source of frustration for me that Americans have developed so many prejudices against Europe and even their North American partnerships. We do so believe in our exceptionalism that we refuse to recognize that someone else somewhere else knows how to do something better than we do. When I read about the Roman Empire, one of their strengths, that always impressed me and helped them become the most powerful nation the world has ever seen, until the United States, was their ability to recognize and assimilate good ideas from other cultures. They assimilated the very best from every culture they encountered.
As Jared Diamond points out, look at how many of the United States’ winners of Nobel Prizes were immigrants or first generation descendents from immigrants. The US may have provided the catalyst for those exceptional people to reach their full potential, but the synergy of bringing people together from different cultures,with different eyes, with different experiences, leads to amazing breakthroughs in science, economics, literature, art, etc. So is American exceptionalism really based on American ingenuity, or is it based upon the synergy of all those fatherlands/motherlands contributing to the melting pot of what makes us Americans?
What are immigrants good for? Well, it seems to me like they are essential in keeping America exceptional.
What Diamond is doing in this book is encouraging all of us to expand our view of the world and see the exceptionalism and the miscalculations that have occurred around the world in moments of crisis. He has selected 7 nations for which he has developed a particular fondness, and all of them are places he has spent a significant amount of time visiting or living in. The seven finalists for the Diamond round of analysis are Finland, Japan, Chile, Indonesia, Germany, Australia, and the United States.
I am surprised that he did not include an African country. He does talk about the population explosion in Kenya, 4% growth, but he uses it in such a way that changes my perception of how to analyze population growth. Yes, of course, it is in the best interest of Kenya to lower their reproductive rates. There are currently 50 million Kenyans and 330 million Americans. Guess how many Kenyans it takes to equal the consumption of ONE American.
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Thank goodness, the population growth of the US is nearly flat because, really, how many more Americans can we afford? For that matter, the ratio is way skewed between any first world country and any country in Africa. I feel that lowering our footprint is a duty for all of us.
The goal of the book is to analyze these countries at moments of crisis and weigh the successfulness of the decisions that were made to attempt to avert disaster.
I am pleasantly surprised that Diamond chose Finland because I know next to nothing about the history of Finland and certainly had no clear understanding of the complicated relationship they have had with Russia. In 1939, the Soviet Union attacked Finland. There is a strip of land between Russia and Finland that has geographical significance for both countries. Interestingly enough, Finland had alliances with Britain, France, and Sweden and fully hoped those nations would come to their aid.
They did not.
It was a true David and Goliath situation. The population of Finland was 3,700,000, compared to the Soviet Union’s 170 million. Now the allies were busy with a war with Germany, but still you have to think that they were looking at the mismatch of that situation and realizing that the war was over before it ever began.
They were wrong.
The Soviets threw everything at the Finns. They had modern tanks, planes, and artillery, which were nearly nonexistent for the Finns. They had 500,000 troops to use as just the first wave. It should have been over before it ever began.
One of the Finnish secret weapons turned out to be skis.
The Finns brought the Soviet advance to a screeching halt with courage, ingenuity, and superb leadership. I’d love to tell you more about how they accomplished it, but you really need to read the Diamond assessment. I will say, equally impressive has been the way that Finland has positioned itself between the West and the Russians to make it more advantageous for the Russians to let them continue to exist as a sovereign nation, rather than attempting once again to conquer and control them.
Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into Edo Bay in 1853, changing the trajectory of Japanese history forever. As Diamond weighs the evolution of Japan in world events, you will see that they had moments of brilliant decision making and some very bad ones when hubris outweighed intellect.
A coup in Chile, in 1973, led to the systematic murder of thousands of leftist leaning Chileans. Augusto Pinochet, the mild mannered, religious, psychopath who orchestrated this coup, stayed in power, of some sort, clear up to 2002. He was never prosecuted for his crimes. In fact, the Chilean economy eventually prospered because of some of the decisions he made as dictator. Diamond will sort through the blood and economic boom to analyze the Pinochet decisions that worked and those that led to genocide.
Diamond discusses the particularly unique issues that happen when a country is an island nation, like Indonesia. How do you coalesce all these isolated island cultures into one sense of nationality?
There is a lot to unpack in the recent history of Germany, and Diamond breaks down the disasters, as well as the moments of resilience, that have led Germany back to the forefront of successful nations.
I’ve always heard that Australia is desperate to increase its population. Diamond breaks down the benefits and potential pitfalls of a liberal immigration policy to increase population. When you look at the successes of small nations, like Finland, who enjoy a very high standard of living from the top to the bottom of their societies, is a larger population really the key to greater productivity?
Of course, Diamond devotes the most chapters to the United States. There are still a lot of wonderful things about being an American, and Diamond is unexpectedly hopeful that the US will begin to focus on the more important problems facing Americans, such as health care, education, our outrageously large prison system, immigration, and shoring up a system to insure comfortable retirements for our elderly. Solutions are all within our grasp, and many of them already exist with other friendly nations abroad, and even some solutions might rest with those nations right on our own doorstep. I do want us to, in fact, think more like the Romans and recognize good ideas wherever they might blossom into existence and not be afraid to apply them for the greater good of our society simply because they originated elsewhere. We need to embrace the fact that our exceptionalism isn’t the definition of being an American, but that we are an immigrant nation that provides a haven for exceptionalism from all over the world.
You may not always agree with Diamond. Believe me, he is used to dissenting opinions. He even discusses the lack of manners and civil discourse, especially online, that might eventually prove as detrimental to our society as anything else we face. It is hard to reach reasonable conclusions when you presume the people who disagree with you are inherently evil. Diamond, as always, gives me much to ponder. Highly Recommended!
I would like to thank Little, Brown for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visithttp://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten (less)
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Apr 04, 2019David Wineberg rated it really liked it
Diamond in the Rough
Albert Einstein spent the last half of his life trying to fit the universe into one elegant formula. He did not succeed. Jared Diamond is trying to do the same with national political crises in Upheaval. He has developed a list of 12 factors that show up in times of crisis at the nation level. The degree to which the nation deals with those factors (if at all) determines how successful it will likely be in dealing with it.
The book exists at three levels: the individual, the nation and the world. The factors relating to their crises can be quite similar. The bulk of the book is on seven countries Diamond has had relationships with, having lived and/or worked in them. They are Indonesia, Japan, Germany, USA, Australia, Chile and Finland. They’re all different, and they all handled their crises differently. Some are still in crisis.
A crisis is a serious challenge that cannot be solved by existing methods of coping, Diamond says. The examples include foreign invasion, internal revolution, evolving past previous bad policy, externalizing problems, and denial of problems.
As for the US, Diamond sees it entering a crisis of identity and survival, riven by self-centered Americans who only care about themselves and today – right up to the top. Perspective, reflection and especially co-operation and compromise are absent from this crisis.
These are Diamond’s 12 factors for national crises:
1. National consensus that one’s nation is in crisis
2. Acceptance of national responsibility to do something
3. Building fence, to delineate the national problems needing to be solved
4. Getting material and financial help from other nations
5. Using other nations as models of how to solve the problems
6. National identity
7. Honest national self-appraisal
8. Historical experience of previous national crises
9. Dealing with national failure
10. Situation-specific national flexibility
11. National core values
12. Freedom from geopolitical constraints
The Chinese word weiji means crisis. It component characters are wei for danger and ji for opportunity. As in many clouds have silver linings. The example he gives first is Finland’s stunningly rapid industrialization when faced with $300M in war reparations after negotiating peace with the invading Soviet Union. Finland only had four million people at the time.
Things get dicier at the global level. Looking forward to potential crises like nuclear winter and climate change, Diamond’s model shows the nations of the world, and in particular the USA, are not set, ready or equipped to make the efforts the model stipulates to come out the other side of the crisis decently.
The structure of the book is standardized: a lot of history, some insight from personal relationships, and how the historical crisis fits the parameters Diamond set out. Mostly, it’s a lot of international history; interesting, and probably new to most readers. By far the best chapter is the epilogue, where he tackles the real issues: do national leaders make a difference in crises, and do nations need a crisis to act, or can they anticipate. The answers are sometimes to all the questions.
Diamond has created an interesting matrix for future study, but its application to the real world remains a question mark. It was a good exercise, but of indeterminate value.
David Wineberg (less)
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Jan 28, 2019Megan Bell rated it it was amazing
Shelves: 2019
In this follow-up to Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse, Jared Diamond shows how nations have overcome crises through methods individuals often practice in overcoming personal trauma. Through his historical study of Finland, Meiji Japan, Chile, Indonesia, Germany, and Australia and his examination of current crises facing Japan, the US, and the world, Diamond reveals how certain factors like honest self-appraisal and dealing with national failure can help predict resilience. This is a fascinating and informative read that gave me a new perspective on the crises facing our country and our world today. Thank you to Little, Brown for the advance reading copy! (less)
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Feb 27, 2019Stephen Yoder rated it it was amazing
Shelves: first-read
Jared Diamond's framework for this book (Mapping the factors for individuals to successfully surmount personal crises to the greater context of nations successfully navigating crises) strikes me as a simple, brilliant move. For all the talk of needing more STEM education in our nation we need a few more million social workers to guide us all through the honest appraisal of our shortcomings & strengths so our nation can move past so many simultaneous crises.
Reading about how Japan, Finland, Germany, Chile, Indonesia, and Australia dealt with their modern upheavals made me worry more about the United States of America, which Diamond addresses toward the end of his book. Do we still have what it takes to resolve incredible challenges? Can we leave behind so many damaging cultural myths that hold us back & divide us unnecessarily? Will the wealthy come to their senses soon enough to allow other groups in our nation to actually receive the benefits of our government & somewhat-strong economy?
Diamond mentions that heads of state have read his previous books and discussed them with him. I can see that Bill Gates has this book on his To Read list (Hey, Bill! I'm using a Windows OS now and it doesn't stink.). I can only hope that more elites will take the time to read Upheaval. My own children's future may depend upon it.
A few more thoughts.
Jared Diamond's travels, interconnections, and abilities with languages (he's way above average in terms of language mastery compared to other Americans) really serve him well.
I've read for years about World War II and heard about how Finland defended itself well against hordes of Russians, but I had never focused upon what they had to do to survive WWII plus stay independent of Russia. I have so much more respect for Finland at this point. I need to read further about this nation & their wacky language.
I wish Diamond had included an African nation in this book.
I never knew about the dramatic changes that swept through Australia in just a few months in 1972 as a result of the UK treating them like a foreign nation (which Australia itself didn't even consider itself to be for many years). I can only hope that the USA can have some dramatic changes in so many important arenas.
Such an important book. I'm grateful I rec'd an ARC.
My apologies that this is a disjointed review.
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May 14, 2019Dan Graser rated it it was amazing
This third work in Jared Diamond's monumental trilogy that began with, "Guns, Germs, and Steel," and, "Collapse," is both an historical analysis of nations' responses before, during, and after going through periods of crises/upheavals, as well as a very impassioned cri de coeur centering on the most fundamental concept of history writing: that being we should learn from our mistakes and the mistakes of others to forestall similar and worse outcomes in our own futures. Though opinion has been mixed as to the explanatory power of the previous two volumes, I have found that most critique is based on a complete ignorance of his writing and represents a grossly stultifying simplification that seems to have been made in advance of these critics actual (if ever) reading of his work.
About which he is very frank, the selection process for the representative nations and their upheavals in this book mainly involved the countries with which he has the most experience and where he has lived and spoken the language. These are Chile, Japan, Indonesia, Finland, Germany, Australia, and the United States. The latter, our own country, is discussed as being in a current crisis. He frames the discussion around these nations' periods of crisis with 12 main bullet points:
1. Acknowledgement that one is in a crisis
2. Accept responsibility; avoid victimization, self-pity, and blaming others
3. Building fence/selective change
4. Help from other nations
5. Using other nations as models
6. National identity
7. Honest self-appraisal
8. Historical experience of previous national crises
9. Patience with national failure
10. Situation-specific national flexibility
11. National core values
12. Freedom from geopolitical constraints
Though in a work of this scope and dealing with a representative sample so small, you would expect some of the connections to be tenuous, this is NOT the case with this book. Though it is true that Diamond's analyses of some situations and political upheavals will seem overly terse, the connections he draws throughout the narrative are quite potent and his epilogue wraps up this discussion in cogent fashion. His recommendations for further study are prescient and his tone throughout is personal and erudite, as we have come to expect, but maintains a humility for the scope of analysis he is trying to achieve. (less)
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Apr 19, 2019Rt rated it it was ok
Starting with an analogy to individual crisis, Diamond argues that 12 factors determine how a nation responds to a crisis (mostly successfully; even the authoritarian coups he covers have their good sides, he thinks, especially since it’s unknowable whether you could’ve gotten the good—market-based economic reforms—without the bad, which does not seem like a reason to read history). The book did not cohere very well, but if you want capsule histories of big events in Chile, Japan, Indonesia, Finland, Germany, and Australia, and an overview of global warming and other challenges facing the US/the world, then I guess you could read this. (less)
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May 12, 2019Marian rated it it was amazing
Shelves: audible, big-issues-of-life, field-of-dreams, general-history, psychology, science,reviews-2019
Our Daily Bread, The Future, and The Urine of the Earth
Please read this book. The operating system for planet Earth must be reinvented. You are smart. You know that already. Here is a voice with wisdom offering a gift of analysis, concern, and hope. In his life, Diamond tasted the urine of earth and found it sugary. He gives us his best treatment theories in a world still to invent insulin much less the better global operating system.
I remember hearing the term, “Historical Theory” as an undergraduate in the 1980’s, and I wondered how a “factual” subject like history could possibly have a theoretical component. Over time, I learned that our operating theories, our perspectives, our frames, our expectations, and our programming matter more to every human activity than the facts. Facts are important, but authors pick facts selectively, choose words purposefully, and express findings based on internalized models. Every academic discipline has a theory. Every human has an operating system, an internal theory, too.
Here you have metatheory, theory, and eggs of theory essential to human discourse. Jared Diamond is a polymath; he communicates the emotional fight or flight syndrome of the tortured whale swimming in the ocean of human fireworks while his heart beats on the drum of experimental thinking in the manner of Jonas Salk; he links together his conversations with the prejudiced German or Australian with the nose to smell our common survival fears; his touch is not just the handshake of the Lebanese bird watcher, but also that of the economist noticing the flavors of anger of modern serfs who are sick of “rags to riches” myths.
Is it dull, all this theory? Not at all. I did not want to miss a single word. Is it important or relevant, this history book? Absolutely. Diamond’s inner political scientist and inner psychologist inform us of our warts and beauty marks here in the United States within the context of selected global comparisons and contrast. Our leaders, entrepreneurs, monied classes, and citizens must open their hearts, brains, and stomachs to the warnings and potentials provided by Diamond. I want more, Professor. Please continue! Diamond’s discussions of the warts and beauty marks of other countries, such as modern Japan, should be “Eureka” moments for other countries, too. We have only one planet, and, as Diamond points out, we cannot look to the galaxy of other known Earths for ideas.
Diamond’s style is intuitive; almost each time I thought, “but what about xyz?” he soon addressed my concern as if he had anticipated my question. This book is easy to follow, but it is not overly simplistic. Is this a book any academic with a research library could write? Not a chance. Personal experiences and ponderings across decades inform the results. Is the book contrary to academic research? Very few passages seem to cross the line of unsubstantiated opinion or Diamond’s personal bias. Is it a book of solutions? No. It is a book that gifts verbal concepts to test. It is a book that highlights both incremental change and paradigm shift. It is a book about the medicine of sustainability and the “chronic, incurable, hard to cure diseases” of the political man. It is a book about crimes, failures, lessons, guilts, lack of introspection, mistakes, successes, social responsibilities, democracies, stratifications, social liberalisms, sacrifices, survivals, threats, random chances, plans, and our daily bread. Is your urine sugary? We fix the Earth’s diabetes one operating system at a time.
I enjoyed this reading on Audible, but I felt disadvantaged because Audible does not provide access to the charts and tables referenced by Diamond. I will complain to Audible about the need for a pdf companion. If that fails, I will consider buying a companion Kindle version of this book; it is important and essential information. I do not mind investing in two versions of this Diamond book. Please read this book, and let’s make the future better. (less)
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Apr 25, 2019Nathan rated it it was amazing
In an effort to help the reader to be more aware of (mostly negative) impending changes to our planet in the coming decades, Diamond presents several examples from history that illustrate how various countries responded to crises (both internal and external) and carefully lays out what we can mine from these events.
Comparing these trials to a list of factors at the end of each chapter, there's ample opportunity to sum up what you've just been introduced to, and another round in the epilogue to tie it all together. As you'd hope from the author, it resists being an admirable-but-knotted mess of useful info you'd have to just about convert to PDF to better organize.
He'll help you realize that it's not such a grand idea to issue judgment on a country for what they've done, as there are two sides to every story, right? The exposure of the foolish pride of several countries (yep, including the U.S.) and how these qualities point toward certain disaster (though not without the occasional benefit).
You'll hear about Finland, Germany, Indonesia, Chile, Japan (2 times!), and more. Each chapter is enlightening in its own way, sometimes compelling an audible "whoa"; other times, a chill down the spine, as some of these turnouts aren't too pretty, and match up with current governmental trajectories to a closer degree than is comfortable.
I think it's a more informal book than COLLAPSE or GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL, but that's not a problem--it's just a slightly different flavor. I still came out on the other side of this feeling better informed, more in tune with history and the world, and ready to keep on learnin'.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for the advance read.
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Mar 31, 2019Sherrie Pilkington rated it it was amazing
Shelves: owned-books, first-reads-winners
***I won this book in a Goodreads Giveaway***
If you're a nerd, you probably know Jared Diamond from his super famous book Guns, Germs, and Steel. Great book. This one is written in a similar style, but is focused on nations in crisis (hence the name). The meat of the book is a deep dive into 6 countries at 7 points in history. Jared Diamond goes through their history, culture, and specific situations and then compares how they coped with their crisis according to criteria typically used for evaluating how individuals cope with trauma. It's an interesting comparative study and the metrics he uses are well defined. It was fascinating to dig into each country (especially Finland, which I really really want to learn more about now) and see how the things they could control and those they could not played against each other.
The final few chapters of the book focus on the current United States and the world at large. As an American, I found the analysis of my country in terms of crisis both terrifying and encouraging. The U.S. has a lot of natural and cultural advantages...and our biggest disadvantages are mainly things we can control. The problems facing the world as a whole are much more challenging, in my opinion, since we don't have a framework for coping with global problems. We've never had to do that before.
All in all, I recommend this book to all my nerds. It's a surprisingly cozy read for one that's focused on history, warfare, revolution, and other nasties. (less)
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Mar 18, 2019Steve rated it really liked it
Shelves: first-reads, non-fiction
A look at the way countries have dealt with crisis while comparing the ways an individual deals with trauma with the way a nation deals with upheaval. Looking at the history, geography, and economies of the several specific countries and situations in the book as well as the general upheavals that really drew me in. Diamond brings a surprisingly easy to relate to discussion style with a rigorous research background to his books and adds a personal touch when he has visited one of the nations that this book covers that make his books not only full of facts and figures but interesting as well for the general reader. I received a free ARC of this book through the Goodreads First Reads giveaways.
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May 13, 2019Norman Smith rated it liked it
This book was an easy read, and provided a good, high-level overview to a number of societies' responses to crises. However, compared to a couple of other books by Diamond, this one seemed rather superficial. I think he makes a number of good points, but his book would have been more successful if he had dealt with a slightly different set of countries (Australia's response to a crisis seems to be "evolve gradually", which is what most countries do).
If you have not read anything by Diamond, start with "Guns, Germs and Steel" or "Collapse". They are more mature and fully-developed bodies of work. (less)
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May 11, 2019Steve Walker rated it it was amazing
Shelves: 2019-release, anthropology, big-history, international-affairs
Excellent presentation on how nation states have come to deal with upheavals. This, as with his previous books, requires careful and thoughtful reading. The reader will not be disappointed.
I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for a fair reading and review.
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