4.15 avg rating — 1,477 ratings

"Tainter contends that societies reach the point of collapse when the problem of diminishing returns (in the broad economic sense, not the narrower financial sense) turns negative, when any further efforts cost society more than the value they return. Tainter bases his hypothesis on his studies of over twenty past civilizations that underwent partial to total collapse.
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3.94 avg rating — 74,438 ratings

"Diamond argues that it is the willingness (or lack thereof) of a society to adapt itself to changing circumstance that is the key factor in determining whether the society continues on or collapses."

3.76 avg rating — 664 ratings

"Fagan provides historical and archaeological evidence that climatological changes have benefited some civilizations in our history, but have also utterly ruined civilizations"

3.46 avg rating — 26 ratings

"Hardin contends that human overpopulation is damaging the environmental carrying capacity of our planet."

3.77 avg rating — 199 ratings

"Crosby shows that the history of human civilization is a trend of more and more energy use and that we are reaching the point at which fossil fuels, for both economic and environmental reasons, will no longer be able to power society."

3.79 avg rating — 652 ratings

"Simmons pulls back the curtain of secrecy surrounding the ability of Saudi Arabia to continue to provide vast amounts of oil (the lifeblood of virtually all modern transportation systems worldwide)and reveals that the Arabian oilfields are likely in irreversible decline, despite any assurances offered by the Saudi government."