Goliath’s Curse
The History and Future of Societal Collapse
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Narrado por:
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Luke Kemp
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De:
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Luke Kemp
Sobre este áudio
Brought to you by Penguin.
A new history of humanity told through the lens of collapse, from Neanderthals to AI, and what it means for our uncertain future
For the first 200,000 years, humanity lived in egalitarian groups and successfully thwarted any individual from ruling permanently. Our ancestors avoided a dominance hierarchy. Then, around 12,000 years ago, that began to change.
People became increasingly dependent on resources such as grain and fish, and the world got smaller. Human beings didn’t just pick up the plough but also the sword, and if the landscape was caged, small groups began to seize control of these resources. We began to slowly, hesitantly organise ourselves into dominance hierarchies. As inequalities and hierarchies rose, so too did war. The authoritarian impulse was triggered in neighbours who now had a model to emulate, as empires rose and soared across the world. It was the combination of rampant inequality, extractive institutions, corruption and over-expansion that brought these ‘Goliaths’ down: from Ancient Rome to the British Empire.
Now we live in a global Goliath, full of growth-focused, extractive institutions like the fossil fuel industry, big tech, and military-industrial complexes. The global Goliath has incentivised the creation of ever faster and more interconnected systems, all of which exacerbate the severity of our fall. Whether you are worried about climate change, nuclear weapons, or over-extended, just-in-time supply chains, the answer is the same: we must learn to democratically control Goliath, or we might face a final collapse.
'A brilliant and insightful book' Eric Cline, author of 1177 B.C.
'This is the book on societal collapse that I had always hoped someone would write’ Walter Scheidel, author of The Great Leveler
Resumo da Crítica
'A profound and mind-expanding book that challenges the existing narratives of societal collapse. Through a long-term lens, Kemp asks us to reconsider histories we thought we knew, a present we take for granted, and future perils we have yet to meet. This is a chillingly enlightening read, which will reorient your understanding of the world and how it came to be' (Richard Fisher, author of The Long View)
"A deeply sobering and strangely inspiring history of how societies collapse - and how we can still save ours. Read it now, or your descendants will find it in the ruins (Johann Hari, author of STOLEN FOCUS)"
,"A comprehensive overview of societal collapse, based on the analysis of dozens of cases spanning thousands of years from the Paleolithic to today. Highly recommended (Peter Turchin, author of END TIMES)","Absolutely essential reading for understanding why past civilisations collapsed, and how to protect our own from the same fate (Lewis Dartnell, author of THE KNOWLEDGE: How to Rebuild Our World After An Apocalypse)",
"Erudite, detailed and urgent. A masterpiece of data-driven collapsology (Paul Cooper, author of FALL OF CIVILIZATIONS)"
"In this wide-ranging book Luke Kemp presents a fascinating multi-millennial panorama of how societies have emerged, flourished, but eventually collapsed. He then addresses the lessons this historical record offers for safeguarding humanity’s future, in an era when unprecedented global connectedness and technological advance could engulf our entire civilisation in a terminal catastrophe (Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, founder of CSER, and author of Our Final Century)",
"Luke Kemp is a writer and thinker of great talent and probity, and Goliath's Curse is an important, clarifying, and most of all timely contribution to our age of anxiety (Gideon Lewis-Kraus, staff writer at the New Yorker)","With a breathtaking sweep of history, Luke Kemp decodes the operating system of power and its recurring fatal error: the belief that dominance equals resilience. Goliath's Curse reveals how, from the first empires to our digital age, the concentration of power has always been a precursor to collapse. By showing that our most enduring social structures are built not on command, but on collaboration, Kemp offers a profound argument for the power of plurality. An essential read for anyone building the more open, fair, and anti-fragile world we urgently need (Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s Cyber Ambassador and founding Minister of Digital Affairs)"