... remarkable for its ambitious sweep and interpretive panache ...

What factors made some societies implode and others prosper?

What determines a society's fate, Diamond concludes, is how well its leaders and citizens anticipate problems before they become crises, and how decisively a society responds. Many leaders were (and are) so absorbed with their own pursuit of power that they lost sight of festering systemic problems.

"We have the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of distant peoples and past peoples."