Upheaval

500 pages. cover worn, some light foxingIn his landmark international bestsellers Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse, Jared Diamond transformed our understanding of what makes civilizations rise an d fall. Now in the third book in this monumental trilogy, he reveals how success ful nations recover from crisis.Diamond shows us how seven countries have survived defining upheavals in the recent past - from the forced opening up of Japan and the Soviet invasion of Finland to the Pinochet regime in Chile - throu gh selective change, a process of painful self-appraisal and adaptation more com monly associated with personal trauma. Looking ahead to the future, he investiga tes whether the United States, and the world, are squandering their natural adva ntages and are on a devastating path towards catastrophe. Is this fate inevitabl e? Or can we still learn from the lessons of the past?Exhibiting the awe- inspiring grasp of history, geography, economics and anthropology that marks all Diamond's work, Upheaval reveals how both nations and individuals can become mo re resilient. The result is a book epic in scope, but also his most personal yet .…