Luke Kemp’s Goliath’s Curse is a brilliant, unnerving, and strangely hopeful journey through the rise and fall of civilizations. Like Sapiens meets Mad Max, it exposes a central truth: the bigger and more unequal societies become, the more fragile they are. Drawing on thousands of years of history and cutting-edge data, Kemp argues that the real cause of collapse isn’t war, famine, or fate—it’s the concentration of power. From the fall of Rome to today’s global oligarchies, he shows how dominance breeds decay, while cooperation fuels resilience.
Kemp writes with clarity and urgency, transforming complex systems into vivid, often startling insights about our world today—climate crisis, inequality, and technological overreach included. Yet, amid the warning, there’s hope: we can choose to decentralize power, strengthen democracy, and build societies that endure.
Here’s a wonderful podcast, with Sarah Wilson interviewing the author, Luke Kemp.
Goliath’s Curse is both a panoramic history and a manifesto for survival. It’s the book to read if you want to understand not only why civilizations fail, but how humanity might finally learn to thrive.
Dr Bob, Brain Mechanic 