A radical retelling of human history through collapse – from the dawn of our species to the urgent existential threats of the 21st century and beyond – based on the latest research and a database of over 440 societal durations over the last 5,000 years.

Why do civilizations collapse? Is progress for humanity possible? Are we approaching our end?

During the first 200,000 years of human history, hunter-gatherer Homo sapiens lived in fluid, egalitarian societies that prevented any individual or group control from prevailing permanently. Then, around 12,000 years ago, this began to change.

Slowly and reluctantly, we gathered into the first farms and cities, and people began to depend on easily obtainable resources like wheat and fish for their daily survival. As more powerful weapons became available, small groups began to seize these valuable resources. This inequality in resources soon transformed into inequality in power, and we began to adopt more primitive, hierarchical forms of organization. Power became concentrated in lords, kings, pharaohs, and emperors (and ideologies were born to justify their power). Gigantic states and empires – with extensive bureaucracies and armies – inundated and dominated the planet.

What brought them to their end? From Rome and the Aztec empire to the early cities of Cahokia and Teotihuacan, increasing inequality and concentrations of power destroyed these giants before an external shock tipped them into the abyss. These collapses were often framed as catastrophic, but in reality, they were usually a blessing for the majority of the population.

Now we live in a single global giant. Institutions driven by growth, such as the fossil fuel industry, big tech, and the military-industrial complex govern our world and produce new ways of exterminating humanity, from climate change to nuclear war. Our systems are now so fast, complex, and interconnected that a future collapse will likely be global, rapid, and irreversible. All of us now face a choice: we must learn to democratically control the giant, or the next collapse may be our last.

“Bright and penetrating... guaranteed to keep you thinking all day and awake with worry all night” Eric Cline

“This is the book on social collapse that I always hoped someone would write” Walter Scheidel

Pages: 448, Dimensions: 15.3x15.3cm