Goliath’s Curse

An epic analysis of 5,000 years of civilisation … The lessons he has drawn are often striking: people are fundamentally egalitarian but are led to collapses by enriched, status-obsessed elites, while past collapses often improved the lives of ordinary citizens … scholarly, but the straight-talking Australian can also be direct – Damian Carrington * Guardian *An excellent survey of human history through the collapses of Goliath-like kings, states and empires … Kemp sees a solution in the flashing warning lights; the collective means to rise up and slay the Goliaths of climate change, big tech and authoritarianism through true, progressive democracy – Ben East * Observer *A brilliant, utterly convincing account of the evolution of human society and why we are probably reaching humanity’s end days – Henry Marsh, author of DO NO HARMA 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 TIMESAbsolutely 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 ApocalypseLearned, provocative and deeply unsettling … exceptionally powerful, undeniably impressive – Andrew Lynch * Irish Times *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 FOCUSExceptional … This is not a book for the anxious. It tells of the collapse of empires and the potential for the implosion of human society. In his marshalling of existential risks the author Luke Kemp deploys apocalyptic prose – Mark Urban * Sunday Times *Erudite, detailed and urgent. A masterpiece of data-driven collapsology – Paul Cooper, author of FALL OF CIVILIZATIONSIn 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 research associate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge. He has a background in human geography, international relations and economics, all of which he tutored or lectured in at the Australian National University (ANU). His research has been covered by media outlets such as the New York Times, the BBC and the New Yorker.