Jared Diamond

The 2012-phenomenon includes apocalyptic fantasies regarding an impending collapse of our contemporary society, supposedly prophesized by the ancient Maya and their Long Count calendar. Sometimes connections to the ancient Maya collapse are made. That also happens to be the quite common in academic circles. Some academic researchers believe we can learn from the past failures for future solutions. The objects that were involved in the ancient Maya collapse were not the same as now and therefore we have little to learn from the Maya collapse in relation to our own ecological crisis. The ancient and contemporary Maya’s sensual profiles of ecology, time and space were/are quite different from those found within the “2012-phenomenon” and academia.

Проспект книги эссе, посвященных интерпретации истории и культуры в рамках цивилизационного подхода. Помимо общего очерка в книгу включены эссе об Освальде Шпенглере, Йохане Хейзинге, Иммануиле Валлерстайне, Уильяме Мак-Ниле, Льве Гумилеве, Вадиме Цымбурским и многих других, сформулирован авторский взгляд на проблему цивилизации.

Книгу легко приобрести в большинстве крупных онлайн, а в Москве и оффлайн, магазинов.

İnsanoğlu varoluşundan beri sürekli hayatta kalma mücadelesi vermiş, bu mücadelenin sonunda birtakım yer değiştirmelerde bulunmuş ve farklı yaşam tarzları benimsemiştir. Günümüzde insanların ilk atalarının Afrika'da ortaya çıktığı ve diğer kıtalara bu bölgeden yayıldığı iddiası arkeolojik buluntuların da etkisiyle bilim çevrelerinde kabul edilmektedir. Doğal olarak insanoğlunun benimsediği farklı yaşam tarzlarının ilk örneklerinin Afrika'da olması ve ilk gelişmelerin yine bu kıtada meydana gelmesi beklenir. Afrika her ne kadar ilk çıkış noktası olsa da hiçbir zaman insanların kendilerini en hızlı geliştirdikleri yer olmadı. İlk insanın Afrika'da ortaya çıkmasına rağmen günümüz dünyasında en geri kalmış bölgelerden birinin yine bu bölge olması uzun zamandır bilim adamlarının konu üzerine araştırmalar yapmalarına neden olmuştur. Özellikle ⅩⅩ. yüzyılın ikinci yarısında yoğunlaşan araştırmalar genellikle batılı bir bakış açısının izlerini taşımaktadır. Jared Diamond bu konu üzerinde yaptığı çalışmalarla diğer araştırmacılardan ayrılır. Bu çalışma Diamond'u diğer araştırmacılardan ayıran özelliklerin neler olduğunu ve onu diğerlerinden ayıran meşhur eseri Tüfek, Mikrop ve Çelik'i incelemeye ve tanıtmaya çabalamaktadır. Yazarı anlayabilmemiz için yazarı kısaca tanımak zaruridir. Diamond 1937 yılında öğretmen ve dilbilimci bir anne ile çocuk hastalıkları uzmanı doktor bir babanın çocuğu olarak dünyaya geldi. Küçük yaşlardan itibaren kuşları gözlemlemeye ilgi duymuş, bu yüzden doktor olma amacıyla girdiği üniversitede bölümünü değiştirerek biyoloji eğitimi almıştır. Fizyoloji alanında doktora yapıp 1961 yılından itibaren moleküler fizyoloji, evrimsel biyoloji ve biyo-coğrafya alanında araştırmalar yaptı (s.19). Bunların yanında dillere olan ilgisi ve annesinin dilbilimci olması sayesinde fazla sayıda dil öğrendi. Onu diğer araştırmacılardan farklı kılan şey ise çoğunluğu geri kalmış bölgeler olan çok farklı coğrafyalarda uzun süreler bulunup insanlık tarihine farklı bir bakış açısıyla bakabilmesidir. Evrim biyoloğu olması nedeniyle yıllarca Güney Amerika, Güney Afrika, Avustralya, Endonezya ve Yeni Gine'de yaşamış ve bu bölgelerdeki yerli halklarla yakınlık kurarak onları tanıma fırsatında bulunmuştur (s. 20). Bu konuda daha önce yapılan araştırmalar genelde bu toplumları küçük gören, onların yeterince zeki olmadıkları için geri kaldıklarını belirten küçümseyici yaklaşımlara sahiptir. Diamond ise eserinde bunu fazlasıyla eleştirerek gerçekte böyle olmadığını iddia ediyor. Yazar bu eseri yazmaya 1972 yılında Yali adlı Yeni Gineli bir politikacı ile yaptığı sohbet üzerine karar vermiştir. Bu konuşmadan sonra insanlığın, tarihin ve dillerin evrimi üzerine araştırmalarını yoğunlaştıran Diamond, kendisini bu kitabı yazmaya iten en güçlü şeyin insanların çoğunun inandığı ırkçı biyolojik açıklamalara karşın tarihin genel seyriyle ilgili inandırıcı, ayrıntılı,

Going against both the naive techno-optimist of ‘greening business as usual’ and a resurgent ‘catastrophism’ within green thinking and politics, The Politics of Unsustainability offers an analysis of the causes of unsustainability and diminished human flourishing. It makes a case for seeing that it is profound and deepening unsustainability and growing injustice that characterises the modern world, and that therefore the focus of green or other progressive thinking should shift from its current framing in terms of ‘sustainability’ ‘sustainable development’ and ‘theories of justice’. The books locates the causes of unsustainability in dominant capitalist modes of production, debt-based consumer culture, the imperative for orthodox economic growth and the dominant ideology of neo-classical economics. At the level of developing a progressive and critical theoretical understanding of unsustainability, it argues for the importance of integrating vulnerability, which has been largely neglected by both mainstream western political theory and analyses of the current global ecological crisis. It suggests that valuable insights into the causes of and alternatives to unsustainability can be found in a critical embracing of human vulnerability and dependency as both constitutive and ineliminable aspects of what it means to be human. Rather than seeing invulnerability as the appropriate response, the book defends resilience, the ability to ‘cope with’ rather than ‘solve’ vulnerability, as more productive. The Politics of Unsustainability offers a trenchant critique of the dominant neo-classical economic groupthink, which the book argues must be seen not as some value neutral form of ‘expert knowledge’ but as a thoroughly ideological ‘commonsense’ that has corrupted and limited creative ways of thinking about and through our current predicament. It offers a green political economic alternative which replaces economic growth with economic security, and views economic growth as having done its work in the minority, affluent world, which should now focus on human flourishing and lowering socio-economic equality and fostering solidarity as part of that new re-orientation of public policy. Complementing this green political economy, The Politics of Unsustainability outlines and develops an account of ‘green republicanism’, which represents an innovative and original contribution to debates on the political responses to the crises and opportunities that constitute global unsustainability. The Politics of Unsustainability draws widely from a range of disciplines and thinkers, from cultural critic Susan Sontag to the critical theory of the Frankfurt school, contemporary debates in green political thinking, and the latest thinking in heterodox and green economics, to produce a highly relevant, timely and provocatively original statement on the human predicament in the 21st century.

Con le sue opere il biologo, antropologo e geografo Jared Diamond ha inaugurato un nuovo approccio di indagine dell'evoluzione storica dell'uomo improntata sul ruolo determinante dell'ambiente. Qui una critica all'approccio storico-geografico dello studioso attraverso l'analisi di una delle sue opere più suggestive: "Collasso. Come le società scelgono di vivere o morire".

During the Archaic period of Greek history Sparta had risen to become one of the two dominant powers in ancient Greece, subjugating four fifths of the Peloponnese on the back of its strong emphasis on military functionalism and aggressive foreign policy.  By the early Classical period Spartan society was showing undeniable signs of collapsing and by 3rd century BCE it had all but fallen apart after being ravaged by a devastating earthquake and a Messenian Helot (slave) revolt. The evidence shows that Sparta’s policies and culture were short sighted and nationalistic to a fault, such a fault in fact that Spartan society balanced precariously on keeping their vast Helot population scared enough that they would never revolt against them, the earthquake of 465BCE destabilised not only the material structure of Spartan society but also weakened their power enough that the Helots no longer feared them enough not to revolt. The reasons why Sparta did not recover from these problems will be examined in this paper using Jared Diamond’s five-point framework of collapse as a model into which Spartan society will be analysed. The approach will be thematic as opposed to chronological, and each of Mr. Diamond’s five points will be scrutinised in turn. This paper will scrutinise historical evidence inside of the five-point framework in order to discover whether Sparta’s powerful yet unique culture is what lead to its downfall instead of the commonly held view that is was simply a lack of manpower that caused its collapse. The findings of this paper conclude that Sparta was indeed the grand architect of its own demise, to use a Greek term; Sparta was victim to its own hubris. A. R. Bell - 2014

In this paper, I reflect on the theme of Neo-Lamarckian possibilism, which was grafted from the school of regional geography. I examine the proposed bilateral relationship between human societies and their natural environments that were theorized by Western academics from the 19th to early 20th centuries. Focusing on three early proponents of this line of thinking, Friederich Ratzel, Paul Vidal de la Blache, and Carl Sauer, I argue that they pioneered and have since captured Western imaginations on geography, development and expansion, though today we engage similar discussions in a post-colonial veil. In treating the region as an object of study, early modern geographers like Ratzel, Vidal de la Blache, and Sauer managed to marry an inherent legitimizing clause for the consolidation of peoples and places, that is, the region was permitted to be an objective. This differs from the geography familiar to Strabo and Varenius, as they used knowledge of regions to serve military intelligence or commercial intrigues, to give an advantage for conquest or trade, in order to obtain more resources, power or even glory, whereas Neo-Lamarckian possibilist theories of regional geography legitimized conquest. Instead of aiding conquest, expansionist conquest was made to be part of the course of history, and thus, permitted. The "laws" that these academics described and discovered from the realm of regional geography were natural, as they were inspired by the natural sciences, from a stream of biology called Lamarckism, hence the name, Neo-Lamarckism; these laws dictated a projection or destiny for humankind, and more importantly, the West's role in that destiny. Expansion and consolidation were phenomenon, that is, tendencies that are unavoidable, inevitable, natural, and therefore political yet amoral.

This paper draws from research on small-scale maize production in Mexico’s Central Highland region to discuss the geopolitical implications of everyday agricultural practices. An overwhelming majority of maize farmers in this region, as well as in the country more broadly, continue to cultivate locally-adapted maize varieties they have bred themselves – criollo maize is the vernacular term – despite decades of concerted government attempts to effect the widespread adoption of commercially-bred and licensed hybrid varieties. This state effort to restructure agricultural systems and food security according to nationalist and capitalist priorities is one tactic in a long and violent struggle for control over peasant land and labor in Mexico. By integrating feminist scholarship in geopolitics and in political ecology, I am following the lead of geographers who regard the materialities of everyday life as a foundation for political tensions and conflicts that are constantly unfolding along intersecting lines of difference. Though geopolitics has rarely turned its attention directly to theories of intimate socio-ecological relations, I argue that the field has much analytical and political leverage to gain by engaging with political ecology, and that feminist geographic imaginaries provide a crucial space in which to do so.  This approach allows for an analysis of how a dominant geopolitics of land and agriculture is being undermined through the routine production of criollo maize, revealing new potential for creating broad political alliances with social movements that are currently working toward alternative visions of agriculture and food security.

[AMAZON LINK BELOW TO BOOK ITSELF -- TOC and book summary in downloadable .pdf] 

In the modern jungle of burgers, couches, and remote controls, obesity is an enormous and growing epidemic. Weight-loss books and diet gurus urge us to "listen to our bodies," but our instincts are designed for the African savannah, not food courts. The sugary and fatty foods that we, as hunter-gatherers, are programmed to forage used to be hard to come by. Now they're as close as the vending machine down the hall.

Radical changes are necessary and, fortunately, are biologically easier than small or gradual changes in diet. Barrett tells us how to reprogram our bodies, break food addictions, and ignore our attraction to "supernormal stimuli"—artificial creations that appeal to our instincts more than the natural objects they mimic. Barrett delves into scientific research—from animal ethology to evolution—to show the disastrous direction in which our instincts have led us, and how, using our intellect, we can get back on course.  . . . . . . . .An elegantly written and eye-opening analysis of what makes us fat. -- Steven Pinker, PhD, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of How the Mind Works
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In this cogent, clearly argued, and thought-provoking book, Barrett shows how we are paying the price for our own plenty. -- David Spiegel, M.D. Medical Director, Center for Integrative Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine; author of Living Beyond Limits
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Offers us a way to understand the pandemic of obesity that we find ourselves in. -- John Ratey, M.D. Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry Harvard Medical School, co-author of Driven to Distraction

The World until Yesterday was on the New York Times nonfic-tion bestseller list for several weeks—a record unmatched, as far as I can tell, by any book written recently by an anthropologist. The fictional forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan is a much more frequent visitor than any real scholar. Ironically, in this book and its predecessors, Jared Diamond, a self-described evolutionary biologist specializing in birds, is a more effective popularizer of anthropology than any contemporary anthropologist. In this he is not unique—anthropological topics have been effectively hijacked for popular audiences by political scientists to whom " culture matters, " sociobiologists, evolutionary psychologists , economists, and even diet gurus. This poaching on our territory reveals a great deal about both the strengths and limitations of anthropology; it says that whereas we have a unique perspective and theoretical tools that make an an-thropological analysis distinctive and valuable, we do not seem willing or able to translate that analysis into a form with public appeal. Many anthropologists, judging from book reviews and blogs, have responded to Diamond's writing with predictable hostility, arguing that he misrepresents anthropology. Others attack Diamond for his inaccurate and condescending portrayals of New Guineans, in the way he stereotypes them as violent and exotic. In this book, Diamond responds by asserting that he has spent a major portion of his life in Melanesia, has learned local languages, has made many friends, and depends on anthropologists for much of his information. He also asks how anthropologists can complain about his veracity, given all the recent controversies over alleged unethical conduct and falsification of evidence by major figures in the discipline.

Environmental Philosophy has been used in developing countries as a lethal weapon against the small scale farmers. Emission trading and its lucrative offers leave almost all the academics "sold out" for the corporate capital. They successfully market fear among people that something dangerous is impending upon us lest we handle these farmers with iron fist! Driven by the fear, the common public too raises his voice against the farmer, failing to recognize the difference between agro-industry and small-scale farming.  There are intellectuals who mourn the dead elephants.  However, to one's disappointment, they are culpably and cruelly ignoring the adivasi human beings, mauled, killed and eaten by tigers in India. Had it happened to any human beings in Europe, the homeland of environmental movements and deep ecology, the entire predator species would have become a museum piece.  Author says that instead of Green Terrorism, Green Luddism and Earth first movement, we need Man-First movement and scoffs at the inflated claims of environmentalists that their science is more  an arbitrary science(soft science) than a precision science(hard science).

There are inequalities in the distribution of technology and military and economicpower. In this paper a possible explanation based on biogeographic reasoning andadaptive strategy is examined.It is assumed that at the paleocene-holocene transition, all peoples on all conti-nents lived as hunter-gatherers. Differences in vegetation and continental area produced a heterogenous distribution of domesticable wild animals and plants whichin turn lead to adaptation of some populations to a settled living and agriculture.Specialization promoted technologies or highly organized societies.The influence of biogeography on civilizations — represented by technology,farming and domestication — within the last
20000 years is examined with a com-puter simulation. This global simulation reproduces patterns of civilization rise indifferent parts of the world. Comparing simulation results with the archaeologicalrecord helps to understand why certain populations have had a (biogegraphic!) se-lective advantage. The model predicts patterns in regions where traces of civiliza-tions are not known; this raises the question for further explanations for civilizationrise beyond the assumptions made here.Several observations of regional population rise in distinct regions could bemade justifying explanations based on vegetation distribution and geography. Riseof civilizations in China and Indus region was well simulated, whereas a rise of populations was predicted in South American sites outside the Inca sphere

Miniföreläsning för Kungliga Konsthögskolan. Om översvämningar, klimatförändringar, droppsmittor och de möjligheter som bor vid kunskapens gräns.

Bibliogafi: Plinius, Natural History; Rosi Braidotti, The Posthuman; Jared Diamond, Collapse; Nancy Tuana, "Viscous Porosity"; Karen Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway; Sara Ahmed, "Happy Objects"; Donna Haraway, Staying with the Trouble; Jonna Bornemark, Kunskapens gräns, gränsens kunskap; Jonna Bornemark, Det omätbaras renässans

In this essay, I draw on three intimate moments in my life as a feminist
academic to explore the precarious yet powerful position of the graduate student in the politics of knowledge production. Our institutions may continue to generate profits and power from our devaluation, but through
groups of solidarity and support we perform a protest, a collective
counterpolitic. Feminist ways of knowing and being lend political leverage
to our efforts to empower our students, protect and challenge each other, and radically reimagine our inherited forms of oppression. The following  are brief glimpses into my lived experience of Women’s Studies.