Consider the mighty civilisations that have collapsed. There were once the Sumerians and Assyrians, Phoenicians and Romans, Khmer, Byzantines, Mayans, Aztecs, Incas and many more. All considered themselves wonderful — indeed, were wonderful — and all are today known to us only through their ruins and tablets.
Paul Cooper, in this book that ranges as widely over the past as a drone on speed, tells us a host of things we never knew about places that once were. He says we should not suppose that our own civilisation has any more right to survive for ever than did its ancient predecessors.
Cooper is a phenomenon. His podcast Fall of Civilizations has garnered more than 100 million downloads since its launch in 2019. Aged 35, he
