Rise and Fall: Great Empires that Shaped the World by Peter Allen

What makes a society successful, what enables it to last thousands of years and what causes its eventual downfall?

This book asks these questions of ten world civilisations. Some, like the Vikings and the Mongols, you may have heard of.

Others, like Benin, Kamakura, Minoa and Ayutthaya are less well-known today, but in their time were seemingly unstoppable. The creator of the Atlas of Amazing Architecture illuminates these stories with his trademark detail-and humour-packed illustrations, on a journey to uncover the essence of human civilisation.