Promotional Partner: World Affairs Council of Dallas/ Fort Worth
Acclaimed scientist and historian Jared Diamond returns to Arts & Letters Live with his new book Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis, a brilliant new theory of how and why some nations recover from trauma and others do not. In a dazzling comparative study, he reveals how seven countries have successfully survived defining upheavals in the recent past through a process of painful self-appraisal and adaptation, and he identifies patterns in the way that these nations recovered from calamity. Looking ahead to the future, Diamond investigates whether the United States and the world are squandering their natural advantages, on a path toward political conflict and decline. This epic, urgent, and groundbreaking book reveals how both nations and individuals can become more resilient.
Jared Diamond is a professor of geography at the University of California, Los Angeles. Among his many awards are the National Medal of Science, a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, and a Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for his internationally bestselling book Guns, Germs, and Steel.
“Diamond's most influential gift may be his ability to write about geopolitical and environmental systems in ways that don't just educate and provoke, but entertain.”
—Seattle Times