From the author of Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive is a visionary study of the mysterious downfall of past civilizations.

Now in a revised edition with a new afterword, Jared Diamond's Collapse uncovers the secret behind why some societies flourish, while others founder - and what this means for our future.

• What happened to the people who made the forlorn long-abandoned statues of Easter Island?
• What happened to the architects of the crumbling Maya pyramids?
• Will we go the same way, our skyscrapers one day standing derelict and overgrown like the temples at Angkor Wat?

Bringing together new evidence from a startling range of sources and piecing together the myriad influences, from climate to culture, that make societies self-destruct, Jared Diamond's Collapse also shows how - unlike our ancestors - we can benefit from our knowledge of the past and learn to be survivors.