Abstract

Nations experience crises, whose solution requires adopting selective changes, and which some nations are more successful at solving than are other nations. We as individuals also experience personal crises, either associated with certain ages (e.g., teenage or midlife crises) or else triggered by external shocks (e.g., relationship problems or break-ups, the death of a loved one, or a health or job or financial blow). The solution of a personal crisis also requires adopting selective changes, which some of us are more successful at accomplishing than are others of us. Counselors and psychotherapists have identified many factors that make it more or less likely that an individual will overcome a personal crisis. I’ll examine the extent to which similar considerations help understand the outcomes of recent and impending national crises and the impending world crises.

About the speaker

Jared Diamond is the professor of Geography at UCLA , and the Pulitzer-prize winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel, Collapse, and other books.