Category Archives: Collapsed & collapsing nations

Failed nations and states — what it’s like to live in an unstable or collapsed region

Skyscrapers: A bad idea as energy declines

Preface. One reason Paris is such a lovely city is that it was built to human scale, with buildings of five stories or less, because that was about as high as people were willing to climb, so not surprisingly, rents … Continue reading

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Book review of Turchin’s “Secular Cycles” and “War & Peace & War”

Preface. This is a book review of both “Secular Cycles” and “War & Peace & War”.  I recommend reading “War & Peace & War” first, then the more difficult “Secular Cycles”. Turchin has found patterns in the rise and fall … Continue reading

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Venezuela – when will it collapse?

Preface. This is a book review of Newman’s 2022 “Things are never so bad that they can’t get worse”. He lived in Venezuela from 2012 to 2016 as a correspondent for The New York Times.  Venezuela and Canada have the … Continue reading

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North Korea: what happened when the oil was cut off?

Preface. All nations will eventually run low and then out of petroleum, so it is worthwhile to see what happened to those countries where oil was scarce first to get glimpses of our own fate and perhaps try to mitigate … Continue reading

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Was the fall of the Roman Empire due to plagues & climate change?

Preface. Harper (2017) shows the brutal effects of plagues and climate change on the Roman Empire. McConnell (2020) proposes that a huge volcanic eruption in Alaska was a factor in bringing the Roman Empire  and Cleopatra’s Egypt down. In addition, … Continue reading

Posted in Pandemic Fast Crash, Roman Empire | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Slavery in the Roman Empire

Preface. After fossils decline, we go back to wood as our main thermal source of energy for cooking, heating, smelting metals, ceramics, bricks, glass and other products that need the high heat of wood charcoal. Sadly, another source of energy … Continue reading

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Book Review: The Fall of the Roman Empire: A new history of Rome and the barbarians

Preface.  Most historians see the fall of the Roman Empire as due to the invasion of barbarians from the North, partly pushed towards Italy by the brutal Huns.  These lands had never been conquered by Roman armies because they were … Continue reading

Posted in Collapse of Civilizations, Roman Empire | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Book Review of “Against the Grain. A Deep History of the Earliest States”

Preface.  Energyskeptic.com is ultimately about the rise and fall of civilizations, although I didn’t know that when I first started writing this as an energy and resource blog.  Our civilization too will fail as fossil fuels decline, and then we’re … Continue reading

Posted in Collapse of Civilizations, Collapsed & collapsing nations, Human Nature, Life Before Oil, Slavery | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Maddow’s “Blowout”, Russian peak oil, corruption, fake news

Preface.  Since this blog focuses on peak resources, I drastically rearranged my notes from this book in the order I found most interesting. I’m also interested in corruption, Putin, fake news, and more, as you’ll see below.  Since the book … Continue reading

Posted in Corruption, Corruption & Finance, Oil shock collapse, Peak Oil | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

15 Nations that Collapsed because of Drought: will we be the 16th?

Preface.  Another repercussion of drought may be the Muslim religion as Fleitmann (2022) proposes below. This post began with 10 civilizations that collapsed due to drought (below), and I’ve added 5 more. Will the American South West be #16? Lynn … Continue reading

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