When you look at the ruins of disappeared civilizations, you involuntarily think: how could these people build such complex structures? And why did such advanced civilizations die?
The ruins of lost civilizations are one of the most amazing sights in the world. “How could people many hundreds of years ago build such complex structures? And why did their civilization perish if it reached such technological perfection? — these questions are asked by almost everyone who happens to see the majestic pyramids of the Aztecs or the giant statues of Easter Island. And those endowed with a particularly rich imagination will certainly not get rid of other questions: “But won’t this happen to us too? What will shake the imagination of our descendants a thousand years from now?” It is on these questions that Jared Diamond reflects in his book. Demonstrating a brilliant scientific outlook, he recreates pictures of the rise and fall of ancient civilizations and analyzes the prospects for the development of modern societies. The author is excellently versed in various fields of knowledge, from history to physics and from ecology to economics, and this makes his assessments extremely convincing and, perhaps, somewhat frightening. However, Diamond remains optimistic. In his opinion, we favorably differ from the lost civilizations of the past already by the fact that we have before our eyes the mistakes of others, from which we can learn a lot. How far we will succeed — just distant descendants will judge. On some future ruins…
ASTREL, CORPUS, 800 p.