Both farms were located in gorgeous natural settings that attract tourists from afar, with backdrops of high snow-capped mountains drained by streams teaming with fish, and sloping down to a famous river (below Huls Farm) or 3ord (below Gardar Farm). The owners of both farms were viewed as leaders of their respective societies. The two farms were similar in area (a few square miles) and in barn size, Huls barn holding somewhat more cows than Gardar barn (200 vs. Both farms let their cows graze outdoors in lush pastures during the summer, produced their own hay to harvest in the late summer for feeding the cows through the winter, and increased their production of summer fodder and winter hay by irrigating their fields. Those structures, both neatly divided into opposite-facing rows of cow stalls, dwarfed all other barns in the district. In particular, each was centered around a magnificent state-of-the-art barn for sheltering and milking cows. Both were by far the largest, most prosperous, most technologically advanced farms in their respective districts. He begins this historical survey at a place far less exotic than New Guinea: a farm in Montana.Įxcerpt: From the prologue of Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or SucceedĪ Tale of Two Farms: Two farms Collapses, past and presentĪ few summers ago I visited two dairy farms, Huls Farm and Gardar Farm, which despite being located thousands of miles apart were still remarkably similar in their strengths and vulnerabilities. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed examines, among others, the disappeared cultures of Easter Island, the Anasazi, the Mayans and the Greenland Vikings. This year, Diamond published a book that looks at the demise of civilizations. Diamond argues this is how Eurasians came to dominate the world. Germs also played a role in history, decimating some populations with diseases to which others were immune. Some civilizations grew in locations favorable to agriculture, allowing them to develop technologies and social institutions to overtake others. The presentation begins in Papua New Guinea, and then follows Diamond, who is a professor of geography at the University of California, Los Angeles, as he travels to the Fertile Crescent and across the globe in search of the root cause of economic and political inequality. Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Jared Diamond, the presentation looks at why some civilizations have risen faster than others. How Different Nations Maintain Wealth and Power While Others Don'tĪ new, three-part National Geographic series called Guns, Germs and Steel debuts Monday night on PBS.
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