Collapse - How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
In his million-copy bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond examined how and why Western civilizations developed the technologies and immunities that allowed them to dominate much of the world. Now in this brilliant companion volume, Diamond probes the other side of the equation: What caused some of the great civilizations of the past to collapse into ruin, and what can we learn from their fates?
The Rajah’s Diamond, the most precious diamond in the world, seems to bring bad luck on everyone who comes into contact with it. Owned by Sir Thomas Vandeleur, his wife tries to sell it to pay her debts. But the diamond is stolen and then falls into the hands of various people who are all corrupted by its great beauty and value. Follow the diamond as it travels from London to Edinburgh to Paris and find out what happens to it…
A lifetime of craving more cuddly companionship than her hectoring mother has led fortyish Bettina Bilby to board her neighbors' felines for a long holiday weekend: an expectant tabby, a pampered blue-eyed Balinese, a depressed ginger Persian with a cod-liver-oil addiction, and Adolf, an imperious mouser with a patchwork face.
In Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson took science fiction to dazzling new levels. Now, in The Diamond Age, he delivers another stunning tale. Set in 21st-century Shanghai, it is the story of what happens when a state-of-the-art interactive device falls into the hands of a street urchin named Nell. Her life, and the entire future of humanity, is about to be decoded and reprogrammed.
Sparhawk, Pandion Knight and Queen's Champion returns from a long spell of exile to find his native land overrun with evil, intrigue and his young queen grievously ill. Ehlana lies magically entombed within a block of crystal, doomed to die unless a cure can be found within the year.
