Talking Sense

Using examples from history of failed societies, Jared Diamond, who won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction for "Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies," presents a learned appraisal of our future prospects as a civilization in a New Year's Day editorial: "The Ends of the World as We Know Them". "History warns us that when once-powerful societies collapse, they tend to do so quickly and unexpectedly."