SOCI201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Nuclear Winter, Maya Civilization, Doomsday Clock

• School: University of Delaware
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOCI201
• Professor: Best Joel

Document Summary

Collapse idea that the social arrangements we take for granted stop working. Jared diamond (1937--: diamond"s factors for societal collapse: 5) responses to problems: diamond argues that the easter islanders destroyed their environment to support the statues: we ask ourselves, why didn"t they look around, ask themselves " , other scholars assign blame differently. Easter island was a rat paradise no predators, plenty of palm nuts and seeds to eat the rats caused the deforestation. Easter island"s population seems to have remained relatively stable until the natives were exposed to european diseases: diamond offers other cases the anasazi, mayan civilization, The global cooling that occurred in the 14th century is something that historians have written about; a period of intense ethnic conflict in much of. Europe, b/c: the earth cools poor harvest less food for ppl to eat, life is tougher.