Upheaval

I've read almost all of Jared Diamond's comparative history books, starting with Guns, Germs and Steel, which had a profound effect on the way I saw the world, but also Collapse, The World Until Yesterday, and The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee. In Upheaval, which was actually published in 2019, Diamond takes seven case studies of nations that have faced various crises (military coups, invasion, sudden contact with the outside world) and compares how successfully (in his view) they have handled them. Interestingly, one of his case studies is Australia, and the slowly unfolding challenge this country has faced in separating our identity from Great Britain (and re-attaching ourselves to the US instead, which is not looking like a great idea at the moment). He also examines the histories of Indonesia, Finland, Chile, Japan and Germany.

The last part of the book was most interesting, because Diamond turned his critical lens on his home country, the United States, and wondered how well his own nation might handle a crisis. Upheaval was written before the Covid pandemic (which the US handled badly), and before Trump's second presidency (though during his first). Diamond pointed to the biggest problem, in his opinion, in the US being the growing polarisation of political opinion, and the loss of the ability to compromise -- it's hard to disagree that this situation has indeed led to catastrophe, just a few years after Upheaval was published. I'm sure Diamond feels no satisfaction in seeing his predictions come to pass, but his observations were so astute that I feel a new respect for his insights on other matters, too -- even Australia.