Upheaval. By Jared Diamond.Little, Brown and Company; 512 pages; $35. Allen Lane; £25.

B Y ITS OWN lights, this book fails. And yet, as a meditation about a world on edge, it is also well worth reading.

Jared Diamond sets out to construct a diagnostic framework for political systems in turmoil. What enables some societies to cope with a crisis but condemns others to mayhem? Do past crises reveal patterns that could guide today’s leaders as they gaze into the contemporary abyss? Mr Diamond readily acknowledges that his book is just a first stab at answering these questions. He hopes that “Upheaval” will encourage other scholars to take up his ideas and mould them into something more rigorous. It may instead convince them that the project is doomed.

Even so, the journey towards failure, via seven countries at turning-points in their pasts, is enjoyable and informative. Mr Diamond is the doyen of a class of scientifically literate, anthropologically aware and culturally astute thinkers. He is an enlightened guide and a sympathetic observer. Though “Upheaval” cannot achieve its implausible goals, this quixotic effort illuminates what it means to learn from history.

The idea at the heart of “Upheaval” is that the insights which help people cope with personal crises, such as crushing disappointment, divorce or bereavement, can also shed light on those that afflict states. Therapists seek to get their patients to acknowledge that they are in trouble and that they are empowered to do something about it. Individuals can learn from the behaviour of others. They can identify what it is about them that needs to change—and what should remain the same.

Countries are not people, of course. But Mr Diamond believes the parallels are instructive. Are a country’s politicians and media honest about their situation? Do they take responsibility for fixing a problem, or simply blame others? Can they learn from what has happened elsewhere? Are they willing to adapt, even as they cleave to what makes their society work?

As the spectre of nationalist populism hovers overhead, “Upheaval” develops this framework by examining such crises as the modernisation of Japan after Matthew Perry’s black ships sailed into Tokyo bay in 1853, the mass slaughter when Indonesia put down a communist revolt in 1965 and the coup against Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973.

Finland’s dealings with the existential threat from the Soviet Union during and after the second world war are another good example. Mr Diamond reckons that Finnish leaders displayed many of the coping characteristics of resilient individuals. They were brutally realistic about their vulnerability. Finland is a small place that could not depend on help from other countries; its best chance of remaining independent was to persuade the Soviet Union that it was not worth conquering. That meant fighting to the last man when Soviet troops invaded during the war, but then working closely with Moscow in peace time, even though Stalin had just ravaged eastern Finland. By following this pragmatically deferential policy—which came to be known as “Finlandisation”—Finns conceded what they had to, but would not compromise over their independence.

Here Mr Diamond’s method tells you plenty about Finland’s travails in the 20th century. But as an exercise in political science it falls short. You cannot compress history into a self-help guide. For one thing, even if the grand sweep is relayed accurately, it is a superhuman task to gather the underlying facts—even the assiduous Mr Diamond labels Finland “Scandinavian” when Finns call themselves Nordic. For another, the notion that individual psychology can be projected onto nations is fanciful. People talk about a “national character”, but it is a slippery metaphor that leads to cartoonish over-simplification.

Most of all, Mr Diamond’s approach depends upon a flawed understanding of what history is. For his scheme to succeed, he needs to be able to pin history down to an interpretation, as if it were a laboratory specimen. History is not so compliant. In a scientific sense it is unique—an experiment without controls. In another way it is too abundant, overflowing with facts that might or might not be salient. The past is endlessly open to interpretation, as historians rifle through it for the perspectives that grab them.

To crown it all, supposing you can agree on the meaning of the past, Mr Diamond’s method requires a consensus about the challenges of the present, too. Good luck with that in Westminster or Washington.

Those who do not want to repeat it should learn history. Mr Diamond is right about that. But the lesson it teaches comes as a parable, not an algorithm.