Why Harry and Walter loves this book
In 2019, British historian/novelist Paul M.M. Cooper began issuing an elaborately detailed and emotionally stirring podcast about long-gone civilizations, explaining where they came from, how they triumphed, and why they ultimately faded to dust. Cooper accomplished the rare trick of making sense of long stretches of human history while still taking time to focus on the surviving words of some of the people involved.
After some 20 hefty podcast episodes, Cooper adapted thirteen of his sagas into book form, having them now run essentially chronologically. For those not familiar with the podcast, it is a great form of introduction. For those who have heard them all, the book is a valuable refresher course.
Throughout, Cooper shows both how natural forces beyond human control often have a decisive role in how our history plays out, and how, while technologies have changed over the millennia, the foibles of human nature…
1 author picked Fall of Civilizations as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
'You need to read this book' Cal Flyn, author of Islands of Abandonment
'Cooper is a phenomenon' Max Hastings, Sunday Times
**Based on the hit podcast with over 200 million streams**
The world is full of ruins. From the Colosseum of Rome to the crumbling suburbs of Detroit, the vine-wreathed temples of the Maya to the shell-pocked buildings of Bakhmut and Gaza. Each of these ruins has a different history, but all of them are places where, one day, the future ended.
In Fall of Civilizations, historian Paul Cooper tells the stories…
