Upheaval

With the international bestsellers Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse, Jared Diamond transformed our understanding of why civilizations rise or fall. Now, in his third book in this monumental trilogy, he explains how some nations successfully recover from crises while adopting selective changes—a coping mechanism more commonly associated with individuals recovering from personal trauma. 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 murder- ous coup or countercoup in Chile and Indonesia, to the transformations of Germany and Australia after World War Two. Looking to the future, Diamond examines whether the United States, Japan, and the whole world are success- fully 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, bio- logy, and anthropology that mark all of Diamond's books, Upheaval highlights 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.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction, Nonfiction, Mental Health. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.