There have been plenty of great reviews of Jared Diamond’s disappointing volume Collapse, not the least by Victor Davis Hanson on this very site. Few, however, have tackled Diamond’s star turn, his discussion of the fate of Easter Island, as well as has Benny Peiser, an academic specializing in the study of catastrophe, in a recent edition of the journal Energy and Environment. As Benny says,

The fundamental flaw in Jared Diamond’s treatment of Easter Island is that he approaches the problems of its evolution and history with the zeal of an environmental campaigner, and not with the dispassionate detachment of a scientist. He is too much inclined to employ his historical reconstructions as a tool for the environmental agenda and subordinates much of his analysis to moralistic and preconceived intentions. Collapse is perhaps the prime upshot of the amalgamation of environmental determinism and cultural pessimism in the social sciences.
It epitomises a new and burgeoning doctrine expounded largely by disillusioned left-wingers and former Marxist intellectuals. In place of the old creed of class warfare and socio-economic driving forces that used to explain every single development under the sun, environmental determinism essentially applies the same one-sided rigidity to historical events and societal evolution.

Benny looks at Diamond’s claims about easter Island and finds faults with virtually all of them. Diamond’s account, Benny finds, just does not square with the evidence. You can read Benny’s article here (PDF download).