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<p><p>in His Million-copy Bestseller Guns, Germs, And Steel, Jared Diamond Examined How And Why Western Civilizations Developed The Technologies And Immunities That Allowed Them To Dominate Much Of The World. Now In This Brilliant Companion Volume, Diamond Probes The Other Side Of The Equation: What Caused Some Of The Great Civilizations Of The Past To Collapse Into Ruin, And What Can We Learn From Their Fates?</p> <h3>the New York Times - Michiko Kakutani</h3> <p>mr. Diamond - Who Has Academic Training In Physiology, Geography And Evolutionary Biology - Is A Lucid Writer With An Ability To Make Arcane Scientific Concepts Readily Accessible To The Lay Reader, And His Case Studies Of Failed Cultures Are Never Less Than Compelling. He Presents Some Intriguing Digressions About Methods Used By Scientists And Historians To Diagnose The Trajectory Of Long Dead Societies, And Provides Some Provocative Analyses Of Current Environmental Problems In Australia, The United States And China.</p>