Fall of Civilizations: Stories of Greatness and Decline

"Cooper is a phenomenon…a gifted collector of historical jigsaw pieces." —Max Hastings, The Times (UK)

Based on the podcast with over one hundred million downloads, Fall of Civilizations brilliantly explores how a range of ancient societies rose to power and sophistication, and how they tipped over into collapse.

Across the centuries, we journey from the great empires of Mesopotamia to those of Khmer and Vijayanagara in Asia and Songhai in West Africa; from Byzantium to the Maya, Inca and Aztecs of Central America; from Roman Britain to Rapa Nui. With meticulous research, breathtaking insight and dazzling, empathic storytelling, historian and novelist Paul Cooper evokes the majesty and jeopardy of these ancient civilizations, and asks what it might have felt like for a person alive at the time to witness the end of their world.

Praise for the Podcast

“Excellent.” —The Guardian

“Paul Cooper has a historian’s cool for what we know and what we don’t…but a novelist’s eye for vivid details.” —Seattle Times