May Book Club on Collapse: Goliath's Curse

Welcome to Meet the Moment Book Club, where we read books that meet the moment and make sense of it all together. Please see our group page for a list of upcoming books!

After a lively inaugural event discussing Iran, our second book club will dive into collapse -- societal collapse, of states and empires -- Goliaths.

It's especially interesting after April's book "All the Shah's Men," which gave insight into how a Goliath operates; now we can explore how and why one collapses, and ask ourselves, are we living through it now?

"Now we live in a single global Goliath. Growth obsessed, extractive institutions like the fossil fuel industry, big tech and military-industrial complexes rule our world and produce new ways of annihilating our species, from climate change to nuclear war. Our systems are now so fast, complex and interconnected that a future collapse will likely be global, swift and irreversible. All of us now face a choice - we must learn to democratically control Goliath, or the next collapse may be our last."
https://www.abbeys.com.au/book/goliaths-curse-a-deep-history-of-societal-collapse-and-what-it-means-for-our-future-9780241741245.do

The author, Luke Kemp, is coming to speak at Sydney Writer's Festival on May 22 & 23 also!
https://www.swf.org.au/program/festival-2026/luke-kemp-goliaths-curse
https://www.swf.org.au/program/festival-2026/big-histories

We will be meeting at the Erko Hotel, in the open area in the back.

There's no fee, but please purchase your own food/drinks from the venue.

If you have trouble getting the book, message me.

It's okay if you haven'