Apocalypse: How Catastrophe Transformed Our World and Can Forge New Futures

by Lizzie Wade, Christina Delaine (Narrator)

""Lizzie Wade is an exceptional journalist and a master storyteller. She reminds us that survival always has been, and still is, possible, and that our world always has been, and still is, a choice."" –Ed Yong, author of An Immense World

“This book upended my understanding of the ancient world. Wade renders our deep past in vivid prose, showing us that times of great rupture also bring great possibilities for new ways of living, if we let them. Apocalypse is the best kind of history vibrant and vital.” —Zoë Schlanger, author of The Light Eaters

A richly imagined new view on the great human tradition of apocalypse, from the rise of Homo sapiens to the climate instability of our present, that defies conventional wisdom and long-held stories about our deep past to reveal how cataclysmic events are not irrevocable endings, but transformations.

A drought lasts for decades, a disease rips through a city, a civilization collapses. When we finally uncover the ruins, we What happened? The good news is, we’ve been here before. History is long, and people have already confronted just about every apocalypse we’re facing today. But these days, archaeologists are getting better at seeing stories of survival, transformation, and even progress hidden within those histories of collapse and destruction. Perhaps, we begin to see, apocalypses do not destroy worlds, but create them anew.

Apocalypse offers a new way of understanding human history, reframing it as a series of crises and cataclysms that we survived, moments of choice in an evolution of humanity that has never been predetermined or even linear. Here Lizzie Wade asks us to reckon with our long-held narratives of these events, from the end of Old Kingdom Egypt, the collapse of the Classic Maya, to the Black Death, and shows us how people lived through and beyond them—and even considered what a new world could look like in their wake.

The more we learn about apocalypses past, the more hope we have that we will survive our own. It won’t be pleasant. It won’t be fair. The world will be different on the other side, and our cultures and communities—perhaps even our species—will be different too.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Science, Politics, Cultural, Historical, World History

Audible Audio

Published May 6, 2025

About the author

Lizzie Wade is the author of APOCALYPSE: How Catastrophe Transformed Our World and Can Forge New Futures. She's also an award-winning journalist and correspondent for Science, covering archaeology, anthropology, and Latin America. Her work has also appeared in Wired, The Atlantic, Slate, the New York Times, Aeon, Smithsonian, and Archaeology, among other publications. She lives in Mexico City.

Reviews

[Patrick Tullis · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book starts out strong but really turns into almost a fiction book with no references attached to facts. Most of the chapters start with a fictional story of what the author thinks life was like for Neanderthals or people in Egypt’s Old Kingdom. However the author doesn’t make it clear these are fictional stories, then proceeds to switch between the fictional story and journalism. These fictional stories are entirely conjectural, as we have no actual idea what life was like for many of the people discussed or their true motivations. The author themself points out many times this type of conjecture has impeded progress throughout history.

In short, there are better books that examine these topics.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you hear the word “apocalypse” and picture fire, rubble, and the end of everything...Lizzie Wade wants to have a word. She'd say apocalypse isn’t about how civilizations collapse. It’s about what people do next.

Wade takes you from the fall of ancient Egypt to the Black Death and the Classic Maya, and shows how every so-called ending was actually a messy, creative beginning.

Thanks to new archaeological tools (and Wade’s sharp, generous storytelling), we get a whole new look at the past, one where people didn’t just survive; they reimagined the world around them.

If you’re burned out on doom/reality, this is the first book that actually made me feel better about the future (which is saying a lot! I can barely stomach the news!).

[bird · Rating 3 out of 5]

one of those disappointing books where the whole time you're seeing glimpses surfacing and fading again of the much better book you could have been reading. i don't know-- i found it overall heartening, but repetitively so, with writing that sometimes talked to me like i was a child, which i didn't appreciate; the imagined day-in-the-lifes all read like they were teaching culture & language vocabulary, a strange english version of "grumio est in horto" as it were; and there's a powerful throughline to be drawn from apocalypses where society can change and apocalypses where, because of the grasp of power and money, it can't-- but the muddling lines around this idea, the parabolic forms and digressions, the distraction particularly in the determined argument on slavery and colonialism as apocalypses that shifts away the previously established forms of how apocalypses work for those experiences them, particularly infuriating in that she's not wrong and doesn't have to work so hard to be not wrong-- there's a shorter, more direct, more powerful book i wish i had read.

[Bryan]

https://buttondown.com/lizziewade/arc...

[Cathy Stanton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This fell a little short of my expectations. From the subtitle, I thought I would get a little more forward-looking content. I hoped to read about how we can recognize that there’s “apocalypse” present in what we accept as the status quo, and how we can use that to drive comprehensive change in our societies. But the book tended to focus on apocalypses in the deep past. I thought the examples were fascinating and appreciated the focus on archaeology (both methods and conclusions of surveys), I would have liked to read the author’s take on why they’re relevant today, instead of drawing my own parallels.
There also seemed to be a focus on apocalyptic events wrought by human intervention in the physical environment and/or natural disasters. It would have been interesting to read about these alongside apocalyptic conditions driven by public health, the economy, and/or politics so that we could determine how they’re different/similar, and whether addressing some apocalypses actually lead to the creation (or disrupt the resolution) of others.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Maybe, long removed from our everyday context, [future archaeologists] will be able to see a certain kind of truth, one that’s mostly invisible to us as we live through it: that the pandemic’s effects are still rippling through our societies in ways we don’t yet understand and can’t control, and its shock waves will help shape the apocalypses of the near future."

I think I wanted something from this book that it wasn't quite able to provide, but I did appreciate how well-researched it was in addition to being readable.

[Molly Nash · Rating 3 out of 5]

will be writing a review for chicago review of books for this one… it’s more like a 3.5.. will update once i’ve written my review !!

overall interesting and well researched but I think a bit too sprawling and naively optimistic for me

[Bri · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a hard time with nonfiction. Wade made this book accessible, inserting some light fiction into each chapter to personify the research. We're living in a post-apocalyptic world already, with more apocalypses to come. This book gave me context to consider, and even a little hope.

[AJ Torres · Rating 2 out of 5]

First L of the summer 😔 What I expected to be a facts based narrative was more of a creative writing project to get through the monotony of COVID-19 lockdown. Practically every “apocalypse” visited in this book was coupled with a fictional flashback— except the slave trade and possibly one other (?). Good thing, too, because the flashback portions sucked.

It was giving… “even though I’m a white woman and feel comfortable inserting myself into the lives of indigenous folks and making up stories about them, I draw the line at imagining the life of an enslaved black person.” I’m sure she intended to tread carefully and avoided it to steer clear from coming incorrectly, but it was an extremely obvious difference given the organization of the rest of the book.

If the author had held off on this book until visiting more sites and interviewing more scientists was accessible, it probably would’ve been significantly better. It also would’ve created the opportunity to explore the cultural comebacks her apocalypse thesis seems to rest on in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cut the fluff, stick to the facts, and you would’ve had a solid 3.5.

[Kevin B. Jennings · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book and its novel approach to history. I learned a great deal I didn’t know and am kind of mystified by the mixed and negative reviews on here. 🤷‍♂️

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Apocalypse: How Catastrophe Transformed Our World and Can Forge New Futures by Lizzie Wade goes over some of our world’s history’s most devastating apocalyptic events, showing us that regardless of what gets thrown at us, humans eventually will find a way to survive and move forward. If you’re feeling depressed about today’s world and how it will ever survive another catastrophic event, Apocalypse can be an uplifting book to read. While it shows that not everyone will obviously survive a major apocalyptic event, those who do will eventually find ways to push the human species forward due to the need to survive in the new environment. Apocalypse does require some imagination from the author but obviously imaginations based on historical research. Each chapter usually includes a small story told through the eyes of a commoner living in that historical age and what he or she would likely have experienced. These simple stories help create a bond with the readers to highlight that humans thousands of years ago weren’t that different than humans of today.

“They didn’t run, or die, or give up. They didn’t fail or disappear. They looked straight at the apocalypse, and they build something new.” - Author

The book is broken up into three parts. It starts as early as trying to answer the question of how Homo sapiens took over from the Neanderthals and then slowly moves up in time to discuss the event of The Great Drowning concerning Doggerland, Harappa, ancient Egypt, and the ancient Mayans to COVID. Each long chapter discusses how a major apocalyptic event changes and alters not only the physical landscape of the people living in that area but also, importantly, the political and governing structures as well. Events such as the Black Death show us how the people were able to demand higher wages in the aftermath of the event, as well as demonstrating that not all governments are willing to give up power regardless of how much suffering an event may have caused to the general public.

“We need to change how we think about human history–not as an inevitable march of progress but as a story of crisis, cataclysms, and endings. Only when we do that will we be able to see our current world as just one, imperfect, already postapocalyptic option among many ways of being, and to understand each coming ending as a chance for a new beginning.” - Author

Being friends with archaeologists has its benefits when writing a history book, and we’re fortunate enough for the author to be able to accompany them on so many excavations. Through these excavations is how we are able to piece together how such apocalyptic events affected society before and afterward. One of my personal favorites is how the digs show that while the Mayans surrendered to the Spanish and were forced to help build the new city constructed on top of theirs to erase all history of it, the survivors defied their masters by hiding away some artifacts and even building secret attics in hopes of keeping their history alive for future generations to find. It is stories like these told throughout the book that paint us a picture of how our ancestors did whatever they could to survive and even thrive in some situations within their new environment after an apocalypse.

“Disasters give us a glimpse of who else we ourselves may be and what else our society could become.” - Author

This book’s release is timed perfectly. With climate change, global viruses, and artificial intelligence taking over, we are constantly living in a post-apocalyptic world. The changes are small, and many will undoubtedly fail to admit the changes are big enough to be concerned about until it’s too late. But as the author goes to show, if humans thousands and thousands of years ago can adapt, so too can humans millennia afterwards.

[Jan Peregrine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Apocalypse (Nonfiction)

Lizzie Wade's 2025 book Apocalypse: How Catastrophe Transformed Our World and Can Forge New Worlds won't probably be what you expect. We've all been taught to believe that catastrophes are devastating and bad only, but Wade shows us inspiringly that throughout the history of the human race, we have often responded to catastrophe with innovation, transformation, and resilience.

Wade started writing the book in 2018 and finished it with not a little consternation during the pandemic, the world's latest catastrophe. She could better understand how disruptive and terrifying they were and caused her to wonder what future archaeologists would understand about it based on artifacts found found from the pandemic years. She suffered the virus and its longterm effects, but mentions nothing of America's political return for more punishment. Her home is Mexico City.

Maybe my country needs to learn how to be more innovative and resilient before we can transform our capitalist society. The transformation has taken root in shrinking Mexico after about five hundred years of Spanish colonists recklessly draining the lake and destroying the city's water infrastructure.

Hopefully America won't take so long to realize that we must move on from the damages caused by colonialism, but we've a long way to go. Enslaving Black Americans is now imprisoning them. Enslaving people of color is now deporting and imprisoning them. If Americans will transform their society from the catastrophe of the colonizing Trump administration, Americans must accept that our society retains its colonist roots and feels catastrophe is inevitable and natural.

No, it's not.

What Wade does with her in-depth research is show how great empires collapsed, but not always from climate change. Sometimes it was from invasions of profit-driven foreigners who tried to erase the conquered city, as happened with today's Mexico City.

But if catastrophe motivated the victims to become stronger and innovative, then catastrophe became a springboard to transformation that would help them survive.

Very interesting book and warmly recommended!

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a compilation of case studies of past catastrophes that had afflicted various societies and pre-industrial civilizations this book was well worth reading. Some examples, like the Mayans, Egyptians and Aztecs are probably more familiar than others, yet a fresh perspective from the author is brought to every case, so the material was not dry (other than one particular chapter, which I skipped). What I felt was not that successful was trying to draw a common thread through them all in teaching us lessons about what happened to those peoples in the past and how they dealt with it. Be it war, plague or more often than not prolonged drought, that destroyed those once advanced (in their time) societies, it wasn't the end of the world, not totally since there were always survivors, or we wouldn't be here today. Life went on and people adapt, slowly rebuilding from the ruins. How do these examples relate to the impending colossal predicament we face today of climate and nature turmoil and resource depletion? As I've said before after reading Joseph Tainter's book, and which the writer also pointed out, ours will be a GLOBAL apocalypse on a totally unprecedented scale. Whether there will be any remaining pocket left on our overcrowded planet for would-be survivors to recover and pull through to the other side is the million dollar question.

[David Blankenship · Rating 4 out of 5]

"It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine..." would have been an appropriate subtitle for this book. Through a mixture of history, archaeological reporting, and historical fiction, various times when it seemed like the world was coming to an end are explored, with terror and perhaps death awaiting those who endured it, and a new way of life for those who survived or happen upon the remnants of the dead culture. Whether through climate change, war, corruption, or so many other things that may happen, our earth is not a place that is never-changing, but a home that demands its residents to adapt in order to survive.

I wonder if this book would have been better had it simply been about one timeline rather than many; the author spends a sizabe amount of her time on the history of Mexico City, but many other places have their own chapters; it becomes repetitive telling a similar narrative in each place. Centering on one story perhaps would have provided a bit more depth.

But it's yet interesting, especially for those of us who see many red flags upon us in 2025. Are we preparing for what the future holds after the coming wreckage? This might be a good place to give us some hope.

[Roland Glotzer · Rating 2 out of 5]

The thesis of the book is that the world has gone through many catastrophes (weather related floods and droughts, pandemics, violence, etc..) which looked like the end of the world but people always managed to rebuild a new (better?) world. This is backed up by archaeological findings, DNA analysis, etc.. I found all of this interesting and informative. Unfortunately these facts and assumptions are intermingled with fictional stories about people who lived at that time with I assume the intent to make the writing more approachable. However for me the passage of fiction to fact was too blurry and made it a less interesting book than what it had the potential to be.

[Scott Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A unique take on the definition and impact of an "apocalypse", especially when looking at various examples throughout history. This work is part archeological, part sociological and part warning about the impact of how various events, from natural issues or man-made issues, can take a powerful society and lead it down the road to ruin, or at least, what most would consider an "apocalypse". It is a concise and readable work that offers insight into societies and worlds that most would not consider, but that could offer lessons on the impacts of events that can lead to a downfall of a society. Worth the library checkout.

[Lindy High · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise — that out of catastrophe can come new growth and new creative solutions — was great. But it sort of meandered through the adaptation part, except for the section on the Black Plague’s downstream positive impacts. The section on the demise of the Mayans was interesting in that the facts are much different than what little we were taught about it in history classes. Still, when the present — with climate change, wars, political divisions and the like — seems so difficult, it’s comforting to know that there have been worse times and humankind made it through.

[GrandpaBooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the book for the most part and it did open my mind to the fact that humans have been surviving and thriving apocalypses many times throughout history. I normally stay away from books dealing with archaeology but the author discussed the various events in a way that helped me keep reading.

I was bothered by the author’s fictional descriptions but after reading her Selected Bibliography and Suggested Reading section I understood how she created the fictional situations. I would suggest that anyone who decides to read the book begin with her explanations before diving into the book.

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant, intriguing and inspiring.

While borrowing from multiple fields of discipline from history, archeology, sociology and ecology. Lizzie recounts detailed events from human history to the Great Drowning after the Ice Age and the Black Plague of Europe. Exploring how individuals and collective societies responded to their corresponding cataclysms, and the following aftermath.

Using these historical events as examples Lizzie helps one to adjust their perspective to see more clearly though the current dumpster fire of *gestures vaguely at everything*.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's after the end of the world! Don't you know that yet?
Wade takes us on a tour of past apocalypse and unravels the certainties that failed and the uncertainties that made something new. We travel back to lost lands, lost cousins on the tree of life, lost ecosystems, lost empires, and more. loss is always coming, always going, and even where I thought I knew a story (Cortés y Moctezuma) I was still delighted to learn the outcome was far more contingent than I could have suspected. A tremendous marriage of science and history that could not be more timely. highly recommended.

[Lorinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lizzie Wade examines examples of apocalypse in history. The sites include Doggerland in northwest Europe, the north cost of Peru, Harappa near northwest India, the Nile in Egypt, and Mexico City. These examples were all interesting to me. Many examples are the result of floods or drought. She does not mention Japan and the atomic bomb. I think nuclear apocalypse is the most likely one we face today.

The author seems to prefer dispersed centers of power rather than strong central governments. I am not sure that will save us.

[Chris Bullock · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this very interesting and well written. The facts interspersed with stories about the people of the time made for fascinating reading. As history is always written and edited by the victors, it was refreshing to get a different perspective. I've always felt that for the last few years the world has been going mad, and the latest political unrest and altered alliances are all causing significant concern over what can possibly happen next.

[Lorelei · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting perspective on what it means for a culture to face an apocalypse, though more than anything it made me want to read like, a whole book about each chapter's society.

For a little preview, part of the chapter on the Maya was adapted for Smithsonian magazine: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/histor...

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book has several strong points. The stories were great and the maps were very helpful. I enjoyed the literary, but very readable, tone of the book, a balance that is not all that frequent. The author's journey was very good. The only part of the book I didn’t feel was strong was the epilogue. Otherwise this is a great read. Thank you to Edelweiss and Harper for the digital review copy.

[Damien Roberts]

DNF around 150 pages.

Some interesting factoids at the beginning of this make the first 50 pages pretty propulsive, but unfortunately when we get to the “meat” of this it just kind of…is blah, for lack of a better word. It seems well researched and compelling enough information, but it’s told in such an academic way that it leaves a lot to be desired from an entertainment perspective.

[Riccardo Tedesco · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the idea behind this book of looking at past disruptions to understand how human civilizations cope with collapse and change.

It’s an interesting angle and there are some compelling historical examples.

That said, I felt the book kept circling around the same ideas without ever really getting to the point.

Worth a read for the concept, but it didn’t fully deliver for me

[Toni · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was just ok. Something was off with how the info was presented- can’t put my finger on what didn’t work for me. I enjoyed reading certain parts but overall I struggled to want to finish the book

[Amy McGibney · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting enough just not what I expected.

[Shana Yates · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Qinqin]

Re-read chapter 1 and 2 like 5 times because I just can’t do it. Thought it would be right in my alley, but it was just extremely boring….