Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis

A riveting and illuminating Bill Gates Summer Reading pick about how and why some nations recover from trauma and others dont (Yuval Noah Harari), by the Pulitzer Prizewinning author of the landmark bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel.In his international bestsellers Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse, Jared Diamond transformed our understanding of what makes civilizations rise and fall. Now, in his third book in this monumental trilogy, he reveals how successful nations recover from crises while adopting selective changes a coping mechanism more commonly associated with individuals recovering from personal crises.Diamond compares how six countries have survived recent upheavals ranging from the forced opening of Japan by U.S. Commodore Perrys fleet, to the Soviet Unions attack on Finland, to a murderous coup or countercoup in Chile and Indonesia, to the transformations of Germany and Austria after World War Two. Because Diamond has lived and spoken the language in five of these six countries, he can present gutwrenching histories experienced firsthand. These nations coped, to varying degrees, through mechanisms such as acknowledgment of responsibility, painfully honest selfappraisal, and learning from models of other nations. Looking to the future, Diamond examines whether the United States, Japan, and the whole world are successfully coping with the grave crises they currently face. Can we learn from lessons of the past?Adding a psychological dimension to the indepth history, geography, biology, and anthropology that mark all of Diamonds books, Upheaval reveals 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.