Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis

by Jared Diamond

Overview

A "riveting and illuminating" Bill Gates Summer Reading pick about how and why some nations recover from trauma and others don't (Yuval Noah Harari), by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the landmark bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel.


In his international bestsellers Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse, Jared Diamond transformed our understanding of what makes civilizations rise and fall. Now, in his third book in this monumental trilogy, he reveals how successful nations recover from crises while adopting selective changes — a coping mechanism more commonly associated with individuals recovering from personal crises.


Diamond compares how six countries have survived recent upheavals — ranging from the forced opening of Japan by U.S. Commodore Perry's fleet, to the Soviet Union's attack on Finland, to a murderous coup or countercoup in Chile and Indonesia, to the transformations of Germany and Austria after World War Two. Because Diamond has lived and spoken the language in five of these six countries, he can present gut-wrenching histories experienced firsthand. These nations coped, to varying degrees, through mechanisms such as acknowledgment of responsibility, painfully honest self-appraisal, and learning from models of other nations. Looking to the future, Diamond examines whether the United States, Japan, and the whole world are successfully coping with the grave crises they currently face. Can we learn from lessons of the past?


Adding a psychological dimension to the in-depth history, geography, biology, and anthropology that mark all of Diamond's books, Upheaval reveals factors influencing how both whole nations and individual people can respond to big challenges. The result is a book epic in scope, but also his most personal yet.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316409148
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	05/12/2020
Pages:	512
Sales rank:	125,759
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.80(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Jared Diamond, a noted polymath, is Professor of Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles. Among his many awards are the U.S. National Medal of Science, Japan's Cosmos Prize, a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, a Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, and election to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. He is the author of the international best-selling books Guns, Germs, and Steel, Collapse, Why Is Sex Fun?, The World until Yesterday, and The Third Chimpanzee, and is the presenter of TV documentary series based on three of those books.

Table of Contents

Prologue: Legacies of Cocoanut Grove 3

Two stories

What's a Crisis?

Individual and national Cries

What this book is and isn't

Plan of book

Part 1 Individuals

Chapter 1 Personal Crises 27

A personal crisis

Trajectories

Dealing with Crises

Factors related to outcomes

National crises

Part 2 Natios: Crises that Unfolded

Chapter 2 Finland's War with the Soviet Union 57

Visiting Finland

Language

Finland until 1939

The Winter War

The Winter War's end

The Continuation War

After 1945

Walking a tightrope

Finlandization

Crisis framework

Chapter 3 The Origins of Modern Japan 101

My Japanese connections

Japan before 1853

Perry

1853 to 1868

The Meiji Era

Meiji reforms

"Westernization"

Overseas expansion

Crisis framework

Questions

Chapter 4 A Chile for All Chileans 141

Visiting Chile

Chile until 1070

Allende

The coup and Pinochet

Economics until "No!"

After Pinochet

Pinochet's shadow

Crisis framework

Returning to Chile

Chapter 5 Indonesia, the Rise of a Mew Country 179

In a hotel

Indonesia's background

The colonial era

Independence

Sukarno

Coup

Mass murder

Suharto

Suharto's legacies

Crisis framework

Returning to Indonesia

Chapter 6 Rebuilding Germany 217

Germans holding judgment-1968-1968's aftermath

Brandt and re-unification

Geographic constraints

Self-pity?

Leaders and realism

Crisis framework

Chapter 7 Australia: Who Are We? 255

Visiting Australia

First Fleet and Aborigines

Early immigrants

Towards self-government

Federation

Keeping them out

World War One

World War Two

Loosening the ties

The end of White Australia

Crisis framework

Part 3 Nations and the World: Crises Underway

Chapter 8 What Lies Ahead for Japan? 293

Japan today

Economy

Advantages

Government debt

Women

Babies

Old and declining

Immigration

China and Korea

Natural resources management

Crisis framework

9 What Lies Ahead for the United States? Strengths, and the Biggest Problem 325

He U.S. today

Wealth

Geography

Advantages of democracy

Other advantages

Political polarization

Why?

Other polarization

Chapter 10 What Lies Ahead for the United States? Three "Other" Problems 357

Other problems

Elections

Inequality and immobility

So what?

Investing in the future

Crisis framework

Chapter 11 What Lies Ahead for the World? 383

The world today

Nuclear weapons

Climate change

Fossil fuels

Alternative energy sources

Other natural resources

Inequality

Crisis framework

Epilogue: Lessons, Questions, an Outlook 423

Predictive factors

Are crises necessary?

Roles of leaders in history

Role of specific leaders

What next?

Lessons for the future

Acknowledgments 464

Illustration Credits 466

Futher Reading 470

Index 485

About the Author 501

What People are Saying About This

Author of The Better Angels of Our Nature and Enlightenment Now - Steven Pinker

Jared Diamond does it again: another rich, original, and fascinating chapter in the human saga, this one on how societies have extricated themselves from wicked crises—with vital lessons for our difficult times.”

Author of The Zookeeper's Wife - Diane Ackerman

"A new book by Jared Diamond is always a rare and welcome gift. I read them all as part of a single mosaic that, could it ever be fully completed, would finally reveal us to ourselves with haunting insight and clarity, as well as the planet we have the privilege to inhabit. Each book adds more interlocking pieces to that fascinating mosaic. In Upheaval, I find eye-opening lessons about the political and psychological forces that lead to crisis and then resilience, how individuals and nations experience trauma in similar ways, and what that suggests about our future and the world's. Fortunately for us, Diamond's remarkable gift for learning languages has allowed him to live under the surface of various cultures throughout his life, traveling extensively, both mentally and physically, while witnessing many dramatic personal and national upheavals firsthand. His ability to weigh them all with a compassionate heart, a keen eye and an eloquent pen have made him the masterful observer of the human pageant and the important man of conscience that he is. I'm deeply grateful for this wise and beautiful book."

Author of Jaws: The Story of a Hidden Epidemic - Paul Ehrlich

"Upheaval is a brilliant, gripping, personal account of nations in crisis, informed by how people respond to crisis. It’s an especially timely read today, when nations are stressed and have much to learn about how to survive big challenges. I urge you to read it."

Publisher of Skeptic magazine and author of Heavens on Earth - Michael Shermer

“Jared Diamond is one of the deepest thinkers and most authoritative writers of our time—arguably of all time—and Upheaval proves his prescience in analyzing historical crises within nations at a time when national crises have erupted around the world. It is also his most personal work, sharing with readers his own crises, along with his intimate familiarity with many countries that have experienced upheavals, and then drawing out lessons of crisis management for nations today and in the future. No scientist has ever won the Nobel Prize for literature. Jared Diamond should be the first.

Editorial Reviews

"I'm a big fan of everything Jared Diamond has written, and his latest is no exception. He shows that there's a path through crisis, and that we can choose to take it."—Bill Gates

"Jared Diamond does it again: another rich, original, and fascinating chapter in the human saga, this one on how societies have extricated themselves from wicked crises-with vital lessons for our difficult times."—Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of The Better Angels of Our Nature and Enlightenment Now

"A riveting and illuminating tour of how nations deal with crises — which might hopefully help humanity as a whole deal with our present global crisis."—Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

"A new book by Jared Diamond is always a rare and welcome gift. I read them all as part of a single mosaic that, could it ever be fully completed, would finally reveal us to ourselves with haunting insight and clarity, as well as the planet we have the privilege to inhabit. Each book adds more interlocking pieces to that fascinating mosaic. In Upheaval, I find eye-opening lessons about the political and psychological forces that lead to crisis and then resilience, how individuals and nations experience trauma in similar ways, and what that suggests about our future and the world's. Fortunately for us, Diamond's remarkable gift for learning languages has allowed him to live under the surface of various cultures throughout his life, traveling extensively, both mentally and physically, while witnessing many dramatic personal and national upheavals firsthand. His ability to weigh them all with a compassionate heart, a keen eye and an eloquent pen have made him the masterful observer of the human pageant and the important man of conscience that he is. I'm deeply grateful for this wise and beautiful book."—Diane Ackerman, author of The Zookeeper's Wife

"Jared Diamond is one of the deepest thinkers and most authoritative writers of our time — arguably of all time — and Upheaval proves his prescience in analyzing historical crises within nations at a time when national crises have erupted around the world. It is also his most personal work, sharing with readers his own crises, along with his intimate familiarity with many countries that have experienced upheavals, and then drawing out lessons of crisis management for nations today and in the future. No scientist has ever won the Nobel Prize for literature. Jared Diamond should be the first."

—Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine and author of Heavens on Earth

"The virtues of Diamond's storytelling shine through....let this experienced observer with an uncanny eye for the small details that reveal larger truths take you on an expedition around the world and through fascinating pivotal moments in seven countries."—Moisés Naím, The Washington Post

"I read Upheaval with appreciation for its historical sweep... If the world is going to hell in a handbasket, Diamond has not given up hope that we can change course."—Richard Rhodes, Nature

From the Publisher

03/25/2019

Drastic national course corrections flow from complex social psychologies, according to this rich but unfocused treatise in comparative history. Pulitzer-winning UCLA geography professor Diamond (Guns, Germs and Steel) examines episodes of national upheaval and change, including Japan’s opening to the West after 1853, Finland’s accommodation of the Soviet Union after they fought during WWII, and Chile’s whipsawing from Salvador Allende’s socialist regime to Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship to liberal democracy. He analyzes these developments through the lens of “crisis therapy,” a psychological treatment program for trauma victims, identifying 12 factors that help societies rebound from crises, including honest self-appraisal, a strong identity and core values, flexibility, help from external sources, and freedom from geopolitical constraints. He also applies these factors to present-day crises, including Japan’s population decline, America’s political polarization, and climate change. Diamond offers far-ranging, erudite, lucid accounts of historical cruxes, spiced by sharp-eyed personal observations—he seems to have been everywhere—of national characters and quirks. Unfortunately, his social-psychological framework lacks the concise explanatory power of his books on geographical and environmental influences on history; his factors often seem like squishy truisms that fit any happenstance without proving much beyond the importance of realism and adaptability. The result is a suite of notable historical retrospectives that point in no singular direction. (May)

Publishers Weekly

★ 05/01/2019

In Guns, Germs, and Steel and later in Collapse, Diamond (geography, Univ. of California Los Angeles) demonstrated the ability to extract answers from unwieldy masses of information and apply it to understanding questions of today. This newest offering complements the former two and completes the author's trilogy by focusing on the resources six nations drew on to deal with crisis. The cases are: Finland after the Soviets invaded in 1939; Japan following the arrival of U.S. Commodore Matthew C. Perry in 1853; Chile post-Augusto Pinochet; Indonesia after presidents Sukarno and Suharto; Germany in the aftermath of World War II; and Australia's demographic transformation into the multiethnic society it is today. Diamond draws on crisis therapy to compose a list of enablers of change and applies them to these nations' behavior in their time of stress. In conclusion, he considers current problems, especially political partisanship, facing Japan and the United States, and briefly discusses other global threats to political stability. VERDICT Diamond is a master at explicating matters of pressing importance. His earlier books garnered a vast readership, and there will be equal demand for this one, too. [See Prepub Alert, 11/5/18.]—David Keymer, Cleveland

Library Journal

2019-03-03

The MacArthur fellow and Pulitzer Prize winner looks at how societies respond to crises.

A crisis is a turning point, a time when decision and action are necessary. As Diamond (Geography/UCLA; The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?, 2012, etc.) puts it, it is a "moment of truth" that calls on us to cope. We do so as individuals following such adaptations as we are able to draw on, including recognizing that there's a problem, being honest in appraising where the fault lies and what can be done, and then drawing on flexibility and intelligence to work things out. So it is with societies. Diamond astutely examines seven turning points in the history of the world, some of them little known—e.g., the Winter War between Russian and Finland, which briefly pushed Finland into the Nazi camp and involved a humiliating defeat first for the Soviets and then for the Finns. Nations "do or don't undertake honest self-appraisal," writes the author: The Russians scarcely acknowledge a war that remains strong in Finnish history, just as Germany, the epicenter of Nazism, at first tried to brush aside that history and then became the first among nations in acknowledging guilt and making sure such crimes would not be repeated. For its part, Japan has not adequately owned up to the historical chain that made it into a modern nation and then a brutal imperial power, while the United States has yet to reckon with the crisis of slavery, racial enmity, and civil war. Diamond seeks commonalities and distinctions. In his case studies, only Indonesia lacks a strong sense of national identity, which is explainable given its rather recent emergence as a nation and which helps explain its reluctance to work through a traumatic civil war in which millions may have died. Just so, honest self-appraisal is sometimes hard to come by, as when modern Americans shun scientific reasoning, "a very bad portent, because science is basically just the accurate description and understanding of the real world."

Vintage Diamond; of a piece with Collapse (2004) and likely to appeal to the same broad audience.

Kirkus Reviews