Olivia: Okay Jackson, lightning round. You're a therapist. Your new client walks in. It's... the entire United States of America. What's the first thing you ask? Jackson: Easy. "So, tell me about your relationship with your Founding Fathers. Are we still working through some things there?" Olivia: That's hilariously on point, and it's exactly the kind of wild thought experiment at the heart of the book we're talking about today: Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis by Jared Diamond. Jackson: Jared Diamond! The Guns, Germs, and Steel guy. I expect epic, continent-spanning history, not national therapy sessions. Olivia: Exactly! And that's what makes this book so fascinating and, for some, a bit controversial. Diamond, a geographer and historian by trade, basically asks if the checklist for surviving personal trauma can be applied to an entire country. It's his most personal book, drawing on his own life crises and his deep experiences living in the seven countries he studies. Jackson: Huh. So he’s taking psychology, a field about one person's mind, and stretching it to cover millions of people, a government, and a shared culture. That’s… ambitious. Olivia: It’s incredibly ambitious. And he argues it’s the only way to understand why some nations face near-extinction and come out stronger, while others just crumble. It all starts with a framework he borrows directly from the world of crisis therapy.

Jackson: Okay, I have to know. What does a national therapy checklist even look like? Are we talking about a country's childhood or its repressed memories? Olivia: It's surprisingly concrete. Diamond traces the idea back to a horrific event in 1942: the Cocoanut Grove fire in Boston. A nightclub fire killed nearly 500 people in about 15 minutes. It was a mass trauma event, and in the aftermath, a psychiatrist named Dr. Erich Lindemann started developing what we now call 'crisis therapy' to help the survivors. Jackson: Wow. So this framework was literally born from a national-scale tragedy. Olivia: Precisely. And from that work, therapists developed a list of about a dozen factors that predict whether a person will successfully navigate a crisis. Diamond takes that list and applies it to nations. Jackson: Give me the highlights. What are the big ones? Olivia: Well, the first is just acknowledging you're in a crisis. Sounds simple, but think how many countries live in denial for decades. Second is accepting responsibility, not just blaming others. A huge one is what he calls 'building a fence'—you identify the specific problems you can solve and separate them from the ones you can't, so you don't get paralyzed. Jackson: That makes sense. It’s like national triage. You can't fix everything at once, so you focus on stopping the bleeding. What else? Olivia: Then there's getting help from others, using other people—or other nations—as models for how to solve a problem, and honest self-appraisal. But the one that I think is most powerful is 'selective change.' Jackson: Okay, 'selective change' sounds like that post-breakup phase where you keep your friends but get a new haircut and delete their number. Is that the national equivalent? Olivia: That's a perfect analogy! It's the process of figuring out which parts of your identity are still working and which parts are holding you back. You don't throw everything away. You become a mosaic of the old and the new. A nation has to decide: what do we keep from our history, and what must we discard to survive the future? Jackson: I can see how that applies to a person. But this is where some reviewers got stuck, right? They felt that comparing a person's 'ego strength' to 'national identity' was a huge leap. It feels a little metaphorical. Olivia: It is, and Diamond admits it's an analogy, not a perfect science. He knows nations don't have brains or emotions. But they do have collective identities, shared values, and decision-making institutions. And he argues those national structures often mirror the very same factors that determine an individual's fate. Jackson: So he's saying that a nation's ability to have an honest conversation with itself, to be flexible, to learn from its neighbors… that's what separates the survivors from the footnotes of history. Olivia: Exactly. But he knows it's a bold claim. And to prove his point, he throws us into some of the most intense national crises imaginable, showing the framework in action.

Jackson: Alright, so let's put this therapy checklist to the test. Where does he take us first? Olivia: We start in the freezing forests of Finland in 1939. This is a classic crisis of external shock. The Soviet Union, a military giant, suddenly demands a huge chunk of Finnish territory. The Finns know the Soviets have 50 times their population and an infinitely larger army. Jackson: That’s not a crisis, that’s a death sentence. What could they possibly do? Olivia: This is where the framework clicks in. First, acknowledgment of crisis. For a while, they hoped it would go away. But the moment the first Soviet bombs fell on Helsinki, the entire nation acknowledged the crisis overnight. Second, honest self-appraisal. A Finnish friend told Diamond something incredible. He said, "Our aim was never to defeat Russia. That was impossible. Our aim was to make Russia’s victory as slow, as painful, and as costly for them as possible." Jackson: Whoa. That is a brutally honest self-appraisal. They knew they were going to lose, but they chose the terms of their survival. They built a fence around the problem: we can't save our territory, but we can save our independence, our soul. Olivia: Precisely. And they leaned into their national identity—a concept they call 'sisu,' which is a unique blend of courage, resilience, and stubborn grit. Their soldiers, on skis and dressed in white camouflage, became ghosts in the forest. They used Molotov cocktails—a term they invented—to destroy Soviet tanks. They inflicted such staggering casualties on the Soviets that Stalin, tired of the cost, eventually agreed to a peace treaty that left Finland independent. Jackson: That's an unbelievable story. They lost land, but they won their existence. They made a 'selective change'—giving up territory to preserve their core identity as a sovereign nation. Olivia: They became a mosaic. They were forever changed, scarred, but they were still Finland. Now, contrast that with a completely different kind of crisis. Let's go to Japan in 1853. Jackson: Okay, so not a hot war, but a cultural and technological invasion. Olivia: Exactly. For over 200 years, Japan had been almost completely isolated. Then, American Commodore Matthew Perry sails into Edo Bay with a fleet of steam-powered warships—these "black ships" that were like alien technology to the Japanese. He basically says, "Open your country to trade, or else." Jackson: Another existential threat, but this time it's not about fighting, it's about becoming obsolete. How does the framework apply here? Olivia: It's a masterclass in a different set of factors. Japan's honest self-appraisal was immediate. After a few disastrous attempts to fight back, the samurai leaders realized they couldn't win with swords against cannons. Their survival depended not on fighting, but on learning. Jackson: So they used another factor: using others as models. Olivia: On a scale the world had never seen. They launched the Iwakura Mission, sending their best and brightest on a tour of the U.S. and Europe for years. Their stated goal, and this is a direct quote, was "to select from the various institutions prevailing among enlightened nations such as are best suited to our present condition." Jackson: So they basically went on a global shopping spree for ideas. A little bit of the British navy, some German-style government, an American school system... Olivia: Yes! This is their version of selective change. They radically transformed their society. They dismantled the samurai class, created a modern army, built factories, and adopted a constitution. But—and this is the key—they selectively kept what made them Japanese: their emperor, their language, their core cultural values. They didn't become a Western country; they became a modern Japan. Jackson: That's fascinating. So Finland survived by doubling down on its core identity and resisting change, while Japan survived by radically changing its outer shell to protect its core. Two crises, two completely different but successful playbooks. Olivia: And both illustrate Diamond's point. There isn't one right way to survive a crisis. But there are common factors—honesty, flexibility, a clear sense of identity—that give you a fighting chance.

Jackson: It’s a powerful idea. And looking at those two stories, the framework feels less like a stretch. It’s a lens for understanding the choices nations make under extreme pressure. But what's the ultimate lesson here? Do we need a catastrophe like the Winter War or Perry's black ships to actually make these big, necessary changes? Olivia: That’s the terrifying question Diamond leaves us with, especially when he turns his lens on the modern world and the United States. He argues that the U.S. is in a slowly unfolding crisis right now, not of foreign invasion, but of internal decay—chiefly, the breakdown of political compromise. Jackson: And because it’s a slow burn, not a sudden fire, we're failing at the very first step: acknowledging the crisis. Olivia: Exactly. We're failing the honest self-appraisal. We're blaming the other side instead of accepting shared responsibility. Diamond's point is that crisis forces a choice. You can be like Finland, which held onto its core identity at immense cost, or like Japan, which radically changed its outer shell to protect its core. The ultimate failure is not choosing at all—it's letting the crisis paralyze you. Jackson: Because paralysis is just a slow-motion collapse. You get the worst of both worlds—you don't adapt, and you don't preserve what was valuable. Olivia: And you squander your advantages. Diamond is quick to point out America's incredible strengths—its geography, its innovative culture, its democratic foundations. But he warns that we are actively dismantling them through political gridlock and a refusal to learn from other successful models, whether it's healthcare or voter turnout systems. Jackson: It leaves you wondering about our own time. What parts of our identity are we clinging to that no longer serve us? Olivia: And what are we refusing to change out of fear or stubbornness? That's a heavy question. The book doesn't give easy answers, but it gives us a powerful framework for asking the right questions. It forces you to look at the headlines not just as politics, but as a kind of national psychology in action. Jackson: That’s a really hopeful way to look at it, actually. If we can understand the patterns, maybe we can make better choices. We'd love to hear what you all think. Drop us a comment on our socials—what's one 'selective change' you think your community or country needs to make right now? Olivia: A lot to think about. Jackson: Definitely. This is Aibrary, signing off.