SOCI201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 23: Classic Maya Collapse, Jared Diamond, Fear Mongering
13 Jan 2017
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A primary cause of the collapse of societies is the destruction of the environmental resources on which they depend. A society"s demise may begin only a decade or two after it reaches its peak population, wealth, and power. We dismiss the importance of a healthy environment. Countries that are environmentally stressed or overpopulated are at risk of being politically stressed or seeing governments collapse. Author says were fundamentally different from ancient societies and we have nothing to learn from them. We all think we are too unique, right up until the moment of our collapse. Socially stratified societies, ours included, the number of nonproducing consumers who (cid:272)an (cid:271)e supported depends on the so(cid:272)iety"s agri(cid:272)ultural produ(cid:272)tivity. In the us today, farmers make up 2 percent of our population. Fully 80 percent of maya population consisted of peasants. This decline of maya population and architecture constitutes what is known as the.
