A radical retelling of human history through collapse – from the dawn of our species to the urgent existential threats of the twenty-first century and beyond.

** FEATURED IN THE NEW BBC SERIES CIVILISATIONS: RISE AND FALL **
** THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER **

‘A brilliant, utterly convincing account of the evolution of human society and why we are probably reaching humanity's end days’ HENRY MARSH

'Absolutely essential reading for understanding why past civilisations collapsed, and how to protect our own from the same fate' LEWIS DARTNELL

For the first 300,000 years of human history, hunter-gathering Homo sapiens lived in fluid, egalitarian civilizations that thwarted any individual or group from ruling permanently. Then, around 12,000 years ago, that began to change.

As we reluctantly congregated in the first farms and cities, people began to rely on novel lootable resources like grain and fish for their daily sustenance. And when more powerful weapons became available, small groups began to seize control of these valuable commodities. This inequality in resources soon tipped over into inequality in power, and we started to adopt more primal, hierarchical forms of organization. Power was concentrated in masters, kings, pharaohs and emperors (and ideologies were born to justify their rule). Goliath-like states and empires – with vast bureaucracies and militaries – carved up and dominated the globe.

What brought them down? Whether in the early cities of Cahokia in North America or Tiwanaku in South America, or the sprawling empires of Egypt, Rome and China, it was increasing inequality and concentrations of power that hollowed these Goliaths out before an external shock brought them crashing down. These collapses were written up as apocalyptic, but in truth they were usually a blessing for most of the population.

Now we live in a single global Goliath. Growth obsessed, extractive institutions like the fossil fuel industry, big tech and military-industrial complexes rule our world and produce new ways of annihilating our species, from climate change to nuclear war. Our systems are now so fast, complex and interconnected that a future collapse will likely be global, swift and irreversible. All of us now face a choice: we must learn to democratically control Goliath, or the next collapse may be our last.

'An excellent survey of human history through the collapses of Goliath-like kings, states and empires' OBSERVER

'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

'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

'Like reading Thomas Piketty filtered through Mad Max' NEW YORK TIMES

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 *
Unlike Jared Diamond’s formative 1997 bestseller Guns, Germs and Steel, which focuses on a handful of examples (and is increasingly contested by scholars), Goliath’s Curse analyzes a massive data set through digital analysis . . . In the modern tradition of Big Books of human history like Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens and David Graeber and David Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything, Goliath’s Curse provides a novel theory of civilizational development . . . feels something like reading Thomas Piketty filtered through Mad Max . . . a strangely hopeful book -- Ed Simon * New York Times *
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 HARM
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
Learned, provocative and deeply unsettling . . . exceptionally powerful, undeniably impressive -- Andrew Lynch * Irish Times *
Luke Kemp, who analyses 5,000 years of the rise and fall of civilisations in his book Goliath’s Curse, sees the trend towards collapse emerging for global capitalism. According to Kemp, there are two paths for our future: either we will witness global societal collapse, or we will radically change the way we organise our societies -- Ingrid Robeyns * Guardian *
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
Exceptional . . . 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 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
A page-turning masterpiece and a necessary antidote to our age of crisis. If you like Jared Diamond you'll love Goliath's Curse. Compelling and profound -- Roman Krznaric, author of THE GOOD ANCESTOR
An invigorating look at big picture history across continents and millennia, and a survival manual to boot * Kirkus Reviews *
A brilliant and unnerving debut from economist and geographer Kemp . . . a sweeping and dire vision of a world on the brink * Publishers Weekly *
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
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
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

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.