Book cover of Upheaval

Book description


A "riveting and illuminating" Bill Gates Summer Reading pick about how and why some nations recover from trauma and others don't (Yuval Noah Harari), by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the landmark bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel.

In his international bestsellers Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse, Jared Diamond transformed…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Upheaval as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This is a fascinating in-depth account of several case studies of countries that faced a crisis and had to reinvent themselves: Australia, Chile, Finland, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, and the US (I am not mentioning the exact time points to avoid spoilers).

The author puts together a general framework to evaluate the factors that contribute to successful or failing transformations.

For me, as a Russian, this is a very practical guidebook – how should we rebuild Russia after Putin, how should Russia re-emerge as a peaceful and free country; how can we make sure that Russia will never again be what…

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World-renowned geologist, Dorrik Stow, tells the story of a long-lost ocean, named Tethys Ocean after the Greek goddess of the sea. Tethys lasted for 250 million years of Earth's history, straddling the equatorial world and playing host to the changing life and events that have shaped the planet we inhabit…

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