The Gravity of Glory: How Empires Rise and Why They Fall

Ever noticed how history's greatest empires have the shelf life of a carton of milk? One minute, they're conquering the world; the next, they're a tourist attraction with a gift shop. The Gravity of Glory is a brutally funny tour through five millennia of human striving and spectacular collapse. This isn't your high school history class; it's a look at the petty grievances and terrible decisions that topple civilizations.
Witness Rome perfect the art of turning enemies into citizens before turning on itself, and watch Mansa Musa, the richest man in history, accidentally tank the Mediterranean economy with a single, gold-drenched pilgrimage. They rise through military genius and administrative mastery. They fall from overconfidence, internal rot, and the inconvenient fact that conquered people rarely stay conquered.
Witty, brutal, and surprisingly relevant, The Gravity of Glory reveals that history doesn't repeat itself-it just tells the same jokes in different costumes, hoping that this time we'll finally get the punchline before it gets us.