This was originally a series of lectures, asking whether civilisation is a "progress trap" (ie something which looks positive but contains within it the seeds of its own destruction).

To address this question, Wright looks at a number of previous civilisations - Easter Island and Sumer, which fairly obviously drove themselves out of existence; the Roman and Maya empires, which flourished for a long time but eventually collapsed; and two which do not seem to have gone through the same cycle, Egypt and China (although he spends less time on these, arguing that they have survived, at least in some form, because of unusually high soil fertility).

The story of Easter Island is familiar, but still incredible, and Wright tells it well, wondering what was in the mind of the person who "felled the last tree". Sumer failed because over-irrigation led to salinity (and even today, half of Iraq's irrigated land is saline). The reasons for the collapse of the Roman and Maya empires are still disputed by scholars: Wright argues that in both cases, it was over-cultivation leading to agrarian failure. He expands on this to say that as societies or civilisations develop, the population grows to the maximum possible that resources allow, and also that society becomes increasingly stratified, putting power in the hands of the few - who are insulated from the effects of the environmental degradation which the civilisation is causing. This second point was new to me, but it certainly sounds familiar.

I don't know enough about the decline of the Roman or Maya empires to judge how convincing Wright's argument is, but he writes acerbically and covers a wide range of ground. As well as the overarching argument, the book is full of thought-provoking facts. I'll note three here.

- The thick skull of Neanderthal man may not have been a sign of low intelligence, but of better adaptation to cold weather - but when Europe began to warm, the more versatile homo sapiens suddenly had the benefit.

- The division of pre-history into stone, bronze and iron age is not appropriate as a marker of the development of non-European cultures: the highly developed Maya civilisation made little use of metal, and sub-Saharan Africa had developed ironworking as early as China (around 500 BC) but never developed to the same extent apart from that.

- The "self-governing democracies" of native Americans inspired the Founding Fathers, in their social equality, free debate, rule of consensus, and the ability of dissenters to leave the rest of their nation and found an independent group. In 1775 James Adair wrote of the Cherokees that "Their whole constitution breathes nothing but liberty!". But these societies were the result of the mass deaths by smallpox that happened in the 1500s. Before that, societies were larger, more structured and hierarchical. ( )

A nice book with a good topic and well written but a little short given the subject and unfortunately the organization of the appendix is abysmal. In my opinion Jared Diamond's Colapse was much better on the scientific aspects and much more thorough. ( )

absolutely brilliant and completely credible. A truly deserving member of the Massey Lectures Series. ( )

Based on Wright's presentation at the 2004 Massey Lectures, this book scared the willies out of me. The author writes convincingly of 'progress traps' - where technology has progressed to such a point that it is almost impossible to go back. For example, agriculture is one such trap - to abandon large scale agriculture and return to hunting and gathering would lead to a much, much smaller population base. Nuclear weapons are another such progress trap. Written using examples of where it went wrong, such as the Roman Empire, Easter Island and Sumer, it seems clear what we should not do. Which is just what we're doing. A quick read, I found the illustrations or quotes in the book a little disruptive to the flow, but they added value so I am not complaining too loudly. ( )

Smart, insightful, urgent. Read it! ( )