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The Collapse Pattern: How Great Civilizations Destroy Themselves
Rome didn't fall in a day—it took centuries. The Bronze Age world collapsed in a single generation. The Maya walked away from their cities and never returned.
What do these catastrophes have in common? More than you'd expect.
The Collapse Pattern examines history's greatest civilizational failures—from the world's first empire in Akkad to the slow unraveling of Rome—to uncover the recurring patterns that appear again and again when complex societies destroy themselves.
You'll
Why increasing complexity often causes the problems it was meant to solveHow climate stress triggers cascading failures in interconnected systemsWhat warning signs appeared before each collapse—and why elites ignored themWhy some societies survived crises that destroyed their neighborsWhat survivors actually did to adapt and continueThe uncomfortable parallels between ancient patterns and modern conditionsThis isn't a book of predictions or alarmism. It's a clear-eyed examination of what history actually teaches us about how civilizations fail—and what that knowledge might mean for understanding our own time.
This book is for you
You're fascinated by ancient history and want to understand the "why" behind famous collapsesYou think in systems and want to see how complexity, environment, and politics interactYou've read books on individual civilizations and want the bigger pictureYou're curious whether historical patterns have anything to teach us todayDrawing on the latest archaeological and climate research, The Collapse Pattern offers a fresh perspective on humanity's most consequential failures—and the resilience that allowed some to survive.
From the author of Ancient The Fall of the Bronze Age and Twilight of the Ziggurats.
What do these catastrophes have in common? More than you'd expect.
The Collapse Pattern examines history's greatest civilizational failures—from the world's first empire in Akkad to the slow unraveling of Rome—to uncover the recurring patterns that appear again and again when complex societies destroy themselves.
You'll
Why increasing complexity often causes the problems it was meant to solveHow climate stress triggers cascading failures in interconnected systemsWhat warning signs appeared before each collapse—and why elites ignored themWhy some societies survived crises that destroyed their neighborsWhat survivors actually did to adapt and continueThe uncomfortable parallels between ancient patterns and modern conditionsThis isn't a book of predictions or alarmism. It's a clear-eyed examination of what history actually teaches us about how civilizations fail—and what that knowledge might mean for understanding our own time.
This book is for you
You're fascinated by ancient history and want to understand the "why" behind famous collapsesYou think in systems and want to see how complexity, environment, and politics interactYou've read books on individual civilizations and want the bigger pictureYou're curious whether historical patterns have anything to teach us todayDrawing on the latest archaeological and climate research, The Collapse Pattern offers a fresh perspective on humanity's most consequential failures—and the resilience that allowed some to survive.
From the author of Ancient The Fall of the Bronze Age and Twilight of the Ziggurats.
152 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 5, 2026
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