ADULT Event
Paul Cooper – Fall of Civilizations
“Cooper is a phenomenon...[and] a gifted collector of historical jigsaw pieces... [he] addresses a new public in new ways, through a mastery of anecdotage and accessible storytelling
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The landmark history book from the creator of the Top Ten podcast
Based on the highly acclaimed podcast with over 1 million subscribers, Fall of Civilizations brilliantly explores how a range of ancient societies rose to power and sophistication, and how they tipped over into collapse.
Across the centuries, we journey from the great empires of Mesopotamia to those of Khmer and Vijayanagara in Asia and Songhai in West Africa; from Byzantium to the Maya, Inca and Aztec empires of the Americas; from Roman Britain to Rapa Nui. With meticulous research, breathtaking insight and dazzling, empathic storytelling, historian and novelist Paul Cooper evokes the majesty and jeopardy of these civilizations, and asks what it might have felt like for a person alive at the time as they witnessed the end of their world.
“Eminently readable... one can almost hear the spoken word as one reads. Yet Cooper has built his narrative out of close reading of the original sources... the author’s strength is his ability to evoke the physical setting of the great cities that lay at the heart of empires”
© Paul Cooper
about the author
Paul Cooper is a podcaster, historian and the author of two acclaimed historical novels, River of Ink and All Our Broken Idols. He gained his PhD from the University of East Anglia, and has taught there and at Warwick. He writes, produces and hosts the Fall of Civilizations podcast, which has charted in the top ten British podcasts, and since its launch in 2018 has garnered over 100 million downloads and over 1 million YouTube subscribers.
