Jared Diamond: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis

The author of Guns, Germs, and Steel, which undertook to explain the technological discrepancies between different societies, and Collapse, an analysis of societal doom, will tackle the pressing question of how civilizations can make choices to avert catastrophe. His new book, Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis, takes such case studies as the Soviet invasion of Finland and the forced opening of Japan to the West. He'll bring these observations to bear on the contemporary United States.