Collapse and Failure in Complex Societies - Understanding Collapse: Ancient history and modern myths, by Guy D. Middleton, 2017. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; ISBN 978-1-316-60607-0 paperback £29.99; xviii+441 pp., 49 b/w illus, 16 tables - Why Did Ancient Civilizations Fail?, by Scott A.J. Johnson, 2017. New York/London: Routledge; ISBN 978-1-62958-283-2 paperback £33.99; xiii+293 pp., 31 b/w illus

Abstract

Collapse, societal failure, doom and dystopia are popular topics, both in scholarship and in much wider spheres of cultural consumption. The decline or disappearance of human societies has been a point of interest for as long as people have been aware of the vestiges of cultures past, from colonial sensationalism concerning the ruins of apparently mighty civilizations through to early scholarship emphasizing historical process (e.g. Gibbon'sDecline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1776–1789). Modern studies of collapse have highlighted the topic as a historical and anthropological problem of comparative interest in the archaeology of complex societies (see the foundational works of Tainter 1988; Yoffee & Cowgill 1988).