Via case-studies across history, Collapse offers a series of engrossing narratives, informed by impressive scholarship across multiple disciplines. Collapse illustrates how fragile is the balance between a society and its ecological environment; and offers actionable lessons in how we, as citizens, can demand that our own societies function more sustainably.
Why is it that Eurasians colonised the Americas? Why, until European colonisation, did the Americas lag behind the Old World in population density and social organisation? Jared Diamond explores the far-reaching consequences of geographical differences on the emergence of densely populated, militaristic civilisations in Eurasia vs. the Americas.
A microstory about the possibility about systemic change.
Richard Powers’s The Overstory Is an Unflinching Examination of Nine Humans’ Fight for Forests
Captain Planet exhorted 90s children to save the world — while also showing us how large industry and government inaction stack the cards against meaningful change. Thirty years on, was Captain Planet right?
To save the world, individual action is not enough. We need to unite to advocate for systemic change. I recount my own history with eco-consciousness — and my mother’s — and narrate how I moved towards a different path of action.
In this article published at Countercurrents, I explore the history of zoonoses in shaping civilisation, and review the steps we must take to obviate future pandemics,
Amita Basu 