Book Review: Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis
by Jared Diamond
Listen to your adversaries! No, really listen—not necessarily to abandon your position and adopt theirs, but to understand their perspective (whether flawed or not) and so increase your ability to communicate productively with them. This is the take away from Jared Diamond’s description of the experience of Finland, which stood against the Soviet Union alone with no help from the West. Communicating with the Soviet Union was a matter of survival for Finland, and their approach to that situation is instructive.
In addition to Finland, the other of the six countries that were profiled are Japan, Chile, Indonesia, Germany, and Australia—plus the United States as an additional case that cannot be ignored. Each of these countries faced external threats and internal turmoil, their responses to which sometimes resulted in inordinate suffering and death. Exceptions such as Willy Brandt’s abject apology for Nazi atrocities stand out against counter examples such as Japan’s refusal to do the same and Augusto Pinochet’s regime of torture.
Fully non-judgmental throughout, Diamond lets the facts of these countries’ experiences point the way toward sound policy for all countries. The book ends with an assessment of the challenges facing the world on a global scale. Two examples among several are the life threatening results of climate change and the very real potential for nuclear war ignited by any number of those countries that are so armed.
Diamond refuses to postulate that we are doomed. Instead he suggests that the polarized parts of society must seek peace with each other—that talking with and listening to one’s adversaries is not the same as surrender and capitulation. It would be irresponsible to abandon the possibility of reconciliation—even while pursuing one’s just causes to the utmost.
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