A riveting and illuminating Bill Gates Summer Reading pick about how
and why some nations recover from trauma and others don't (Yuval Noah
Harari), by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the landmark bestseller
Guns, Germs, and Steel.
In his international bestsellers Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse,
Jared Diamond transformed our understanding of what makes civilizations
rise and fall. Now, in his third book in this monumental trilogy, he
reveals how successful nations recover from crises while adopting
selective changes -- a coping mechanism more commonly associated with
individuals recovering from personal crises.
Diamond compares how six countries have survived recent upheavals --
ranging from the forced opening of Japan by U.S. Commodore Perry's
fleet, to the Soviet Union's attack on Finland, to a murderous coup or
countercoup in Chile and Indonesia, to the transformations of Germany
and Austria after World War Two. Because Diamond has lived and spoken
the language in five of these six countries, he can present
gut-wrenching histories experienced firsthand. These nations coped, to
varying degrees, through mechanisms such as acknowledgment of
responsibility, painfully honest self-appraisal, and learning from
models of other nations. Looking to the future, Diamond examines whether
the United States, Japan, and the whole world are successfully coping
with the grave crises they currently face. Can we learn from lessons of
the past?
Adding a psychological dimension to the in-depth history, geography,
biology, and anthropology that mark all of Diamond's books, Upheaval
reveals factors influencing how both whole nations and individual people
can respond to big challenges. The result is a book epic in scope, but
also his most personal yet.
