Upheaval

Upheaval

How Nations Cope with Crisis and Change

Summary

'A riveting and illuminating tour of how nations deal with crises - which might hopefully help humanity as a whole deal with our present global crisis' YUVAL NOAH HARARI, author of SAPIENS

** NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER**


Author of the landmark international bestsellers Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse, Jared Diamond has transformed our understanding of what makes civilizations rise and fall. Now, at a time when crises are erupting around the world, he explores what makes certain nations resilient, and reveals the factors that influence how nations and individuals can respond to enormous challenges.

In a riveting journey into the recent past, he traces how six distinctive modern nations - Finland, Chile, Indonesia, Japan, Germany and Australia - have survived defining catastrophes, and identifies patterns in their recovery. Looking ahead, he investigates the risk that the United States and other countries, faced by grave threat, are set on a course towards catastrophe.

Adding a rich psychological dimension to the in-depth history, geography, biology and anthropology that underpin all of Diamond's writing, Upheaval is epic in scope, but also his most personal book yet.

'Fascinating ... I finished the book even more optimistic about our ability to solve problems than I started' BILL GATES

'Jared Diamond does it again: another rich, original and fascinating chapter in the human saga - with vital lessons for our difficult times' STEVEN PINKER

Reviews

  • Fascinating... I'm a big fan of everything Jared has written, and his latest is no exception. ... I finished the book even more optimistic about our ability to solve problems than I started.
    Bill Gates, Summer Reading Recommendations 2019

About the author

Jared Diamond

Jared Diamond is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the seminal million-copy-bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel, which was named one of Time magazine's best non-fiction books of all time, Collapse, a No. 1 international bestseller, and The World Until Yesterday, among other books. A professor of geography at UCLA and noted polymath, Diamond's work has been influential in the fields of anthropology, biology, ornithology, ecology and history, among others.
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