Today, on Undercurrent Stories, we turn our attention to the grand sweep of human history — from the hunter-gatherers of the Paleolithic to the great empires of Egypt and Rome, and onward to our interconnected, fragile world of today.

At the heart of our discussion lies a question as old as civilisation itself: why do societies rise — and why do they fall?

My guest is Dr Luke Kemp, a researcher at the University of Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk and author of Goliath’s Curse. In it, he challenges many of the stories we tell ourselves about progress and civilisation — arguing that the very forces that built our modern world may also contain the seeds of its undoing.

We’ll explore the archaeological and historical evidence for collapse, the myths of Hobbesian human nature, and whether our global, technological Goliath can be restrained before it destroys itself.

So join us, as we ask: what can the past teach us about surviving the future?

Links:

Book: Goliath's Curse

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