Goliath's Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse
Goliath's Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse
by Luke Kemp
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About the Book
A NEXT BIG IDEA CLUB’S MUST-READ BOOK • A radical retelling of human history through the cycle of societal collapse—”a Cassandra-like warning about the path today’s oligarchs have set [and] a sweeping and dire vision of a world on the brink.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)
“Deeply sobering and strangely inspiring. . . . Read it now, or your descendants will find it in the ruins.” —Johann Hari, author of Stolen Focus
“Anyone who doubts the importance of this conversation hasn’t been paying attention.” —Bill McKibben, author of Here Comes the Sun
12,000 years ago, human history changed forever when the egalitarian groups of hunter-gathering humans began to settle down and organize themselves into hierarchies. The few dominated the many, seizing control through violence. What emerged were “Goliaths”: large societies built on a collection of hierarchies that are also terrifyingly fragile, collapsing time after time across the world. Today, we live in a single, global Goliath—one that is precariously interdependent—under threat from nuclear war, climate change, and the existential risks of AI. The next collapse may be our last.
In Goliath’s Curse, Cambridge scholar Luke Kemp conducts a historical autopsy on our species, from the earliest cities to the collapse of modern states like Somalia. Drawing on historical databases and the latest discoveries in archaeology and anthropology, he uncovers groundbreaking revelations:
- More democratic societies tend to be more resilient.
- A modern collapse is likely to be global, long-lasting, and more dire than ever before.
- Collapse may be invisible until after it has occurred. It’s possible we’re living through one now.
- Collapse has often had a more positive outcome for the general population than for the 1%.
- All Goliaths contain the seeds of their own demise.
As useful for finding a way forward as it is for diagnosing our precarious present, Goliath’s Curse is a stark reminder that there are both bright and dark sides to societal collapse—that it is not necessarily a reversion to chaos or a dark age—and that making a more resilient world may well mean making a more just one.
About the Author
Luke Kemp is a research affiliate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge. He has lectured in the fields of economics and human geography, and has advised the World Health Organization, the Australian Parliament, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, and many other institutions. His research has been covered by media outlets such as The New York Times, the BBC, and The New Yorker.
Editorial Reviews
“Learned, provocative and deeply unsettling. . . . Exceptionally powerful, undeniably impressive.” —Andrew Lynch, Irish Times
“An invigorating look at big picture history across continents and millennia, and a survival manual to boot.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“[A] brilliant and unnerving debut. . . . Pointing to modern elites’ failure to address climate change, Kemp offers a Cassandra-like warning about the path today’s oligarchs have set. It adds up to a sweeping and dire vision of a world on the brink.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“The lessons [Kemp] has drawn are often striking.” —Damian Carrington, The Guardian
“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
“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
“Anyone who doubts the importance of this conversation hasn’t been paying attention—the spectacle of the world’s richest man seizing chaotic control of the world’s most powerful nation underscores the author’s points about the corrosive effects of grotesque inequity. It’s clearly past time that we figured out how to build down the scale of our societies, in interesting but urgent ways.” —Bill McKibben, author of Here Comes The Sun
“This is the book on societal collapse that I had always hoped someone would write. It was worth the wait!” —Walter Scheidel, author of The Great Leveler
“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
“Citing Hobbes’s Delusion, Goliath’s Curse, and cobalt miners in the Congo, renowned existential risk specialist Luke Kemp looks both back into history and forward into the future, spelling out the dangers that we currently face and suggesting ways in which we might avoid the pitfalls leading to collapse, before our luck runs out. This is a brilliant and insightful book, guaranteed to keep you thinking during the day and wide awake with worry during the night.” —Eric Cline, author of 1177 B.C. and After 1177 B.C.
“Absolutely essential reading for understanding why past civilizations collapsed, and how to protect our own from the same fate.” —Lewis Dartnell, author of The Knowledge
“A fascinating intellectual journey . . . This is a book that should be read—and a message that should be heeded—by anyone interested in achieving lasting human prosperity while preserving our planet.” —Professor Jim Bacchus, former Congressman, founding judge of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and author of Democracy for a Sustainable World
“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 that will reorient your understanding of the world and how it came to be.” —Richard Fisher, author of The Long View and senior editor at Aeon
“A great book. The history and plausible futures of collapse are set forth with incredible clarity and rigour. The worst outcome is—we hope—probably preventable if we are perceptive enough as a species, and plan enough to persevere against the stupidity and arrogance of the plutocrats in our midst.” —Danny Dorling, author of The Next Crisis