Books about decline
2. 
The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires That Run the World
by:
Oliver Milman
4.09 avg rating β 1,288 ratings 3. 
From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present
by:
Jacques Barzun
4.13 avg rating β 4,605 ratings 
6. 
The Uses of Pessimism: And the Danger of False Hope
by:
Roger Scruton
3.84 avg rating β 567 ratings 7. 
From the Holy Mountain: A Journey Among the Christians of the Middle East 4.32 avg rating β 4,081 ratings
8. 
Path of the Puma: The Remarkable Resilience of the Mountain Lion
by:
Jim Williams
4.30 avg rating β 374 ratings 9. 
10. 
War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires
by:
Peter Turchin
4.17 avg rating β 871 ratings 11. 
Europe's Babylon: The Rise and Fall of Antwerp's Golden Age
by:
Michael Pye
3.17 avg rating β 756 ratings 
13. 
The Vapors: A Southern Family, the New York Mob, and the Rise and Fall of Hot Springs, America's Forgotten Capital of Vice
by:
David Hill
3.78 avg rating β 1,914 ratings 
15. 
Alaric the Goth: An Outsider's History of the Fall of Rome
by:
Douglas Boin
3.50 avg rating β 1,025 ratings 
17. 
Collision of Worlds: A Deep History of the Fall of Aztec Mexico and the Forging of New Spain 4.24 avg rating β 41 ratings
18. 
Vanished Kingdoms: The Rise and Fall of States and Nations
by:
Norman Davies
3.88 avg rating β 3,313 ratings 
20. 
The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians
by:
Peter Heather
4.15 avg rating β 4,269 ratings 
22. 
The Battle of Hastings: The Fall of the Anglo-Saxons and the Rise of the Normans
by:
Jim Bradbury
3.69 avg rating β 178 ratings 23. 
The Middle Ages: From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of the Renaissance (The Story of the World, #2)
by:
Susan Wise Bauer
4.34 avg rating β 3,123 ratings 24. 
Fallout: Disasters, Lies, and the Legacy of the Nuclear Age
by:
Fred Pearce
4.03 avg rating β 225 ratings 25. 
Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood: The Rise and Fall of Byzantium, 955 A.D. to the First Crusade 4.22 avg rating β 430 ratings
26. 
Kingdom of Nauvoo: The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier
by:
Benjamin E. Park
4.18 avg rating β 1,014 ratings 27. 
Atomic Accidents: A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters: From the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima
by:
James Mahaffey
4.21 avg rating β 2,846 ratings 28. 
The Rise and Decline of the Redneck Riviera: An Insider's History of the Florida-Alabama Coast 3.89 avg rating β 152 ratings
29. 
Murder in the Garment District: The Grip of Organized Crime and the Decline of Labor in the United States
by:
David Witwer
3.25 avg rating β 75 ratings 30. 
White Elephants on Campus: The Decline of the University Chapel in America, 1920-1960 4.20 avg rating β 5 ratings
31. 
Old Petersburg and the Broad River Valley of Georgia: Their Rise and Decline 3.75 avg rating β 4 ratings
31. 
The Templars: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of God's Holy Warriors
by:
Dan Jones
3.92 avg rating β 11,459 ratings 
34. 
Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century England
by:
Keith Thomas
4.17 avg rating β 1,546 ratings 
36. 
Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream
by:
AndrΓ©s Duany
4.12 avg rating β 2,640 ratings 38. 
The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape 4.05 avg rating β 4,482 ratings
39. 
Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires
by:
Selwyn Raab
4.14 avg rating β 6,318 ratings 41. 
Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy
by:
Carlos Eire
3.81 avg rating β 7,574 ratings 
45. 
The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945-1957
by:
Frank DikΓΆtter
4.13 avg rating β 2,581 ratings 45. 
Uneasy Peace: The Great Crime Decline, the Renewal of City Life, and the Next War on Violence
by:
Patrick Sharkey
3.86 avg rating β 492 ratings 47. 
47. 
The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
by:
Steven Pinker
4.16 avg rating β 29,270 ratings 49. 
Victims of Yalta: The Secret Betrayal of the Allies: 1944-1947
by:
Nikolai Tolstoy
4.06 avg rating β 82 ratings 49. 
War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence
by:
Ronan Farrow
4.15 avg rating β 8,499 ratings 51. 
Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life
by:
Eric Klinenberg
3.97 avg rating β 5,124 ratings 52. 
Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010
by:
Charles Murray
3.80 avg rating β 5,642 ratings 53. 
The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580
by:
Eamon Duffy
4.26 avg rating β 1,242 ratings 
54. 
The Rise and Fall of the City of Money: A Financial History of Edinburgh
by:
Ray Perman
4.24 avg rating β 33 ratings 56. 
Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956
by:
Anne Applebaum
4.08 avg rating β 7,066 ratings 56. 
Paradise Falls: The True Story of an Environmental Catastrophe
by:
Keith O'Brien
4.40 avg rating β 1,848 ratings 58. 
The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asiaβand How It Died
by:
Philip Jenkins
4.03 avg rating β 2,016 ratings 59. 
Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of America's Public Monuments
by:
Erin Thompson
4.13 avg rating β 344 ratings 
62. 
An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork
by:
Etty Hillesum
4.34 avg rating β 4,104 ratings 62. 
Endgame: Bobby Fischer's Remarkable Rise and FallβFrom America's Brightest Prodigy to the Edge of Madness
by:
Frank Brady
3.94 avg rating β 10,990 ratings 
64. 
Hail Mary: The Rise and Fall of the National Women's Football League 4.12 avg rating β 277 ratings
66. 
A Bitter Trial: Evelyn Waugh & John Cardinal Heenan on the Liturgical Changes
by:
Dom Alcuin Reid
4.20 avg rating β 79 ratings 66. 
Watching Darkness Fall: FDR, His Ambassadors, and the Rise of Adolf Hitler
by:
David McKean
4.31 avg rating β 405 ratings 
69. 
The Fall of the Ancient Maya: Solving the Mystery of the Maya Collapse
by:
David L. Webster
3.61 avg rating β 77 ratings 69. 
Splendour and Squalor: The Disgrace and Disintegration of Three Aristocratic Dynasties
by:
Marcus Scriven
3.52 avg rating β 101 ratings 72. 
Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, The End of Civilization
by:
Nicholson Baker
4.05 avg rating β 2,057 ratings 72. 
74. 
The Narcotic Farm: The Rise and Fall of America's First Prison for Drug Addicts 4.06 avg rating β 111 ratings
74. 
The End of Alzheimer's: The First Program to Prevent and Reverse Cognitive Decline
by:
Dale E. Bredesen
4.21 avg rating β 4,227 ratings 
78. 
Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich, the Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party 3.83 avg rating β 629 ratings
78. 
80. 
The Education of Lev Navrozov: A Life in the Closed World Once Called Russia
by:
Lev Navrozov
3.67 avg rating β 9 ratings 80. 
I Got a Monster: The Rise and Fall of America's Most Corrupt Police Squad
by:
Baynard Woods
3.89 avg rating β 1,596 ratings 80. 
Kinfolks: Falling Off the Family Tree - The Search for My Melungeon Ancestors
by:
Lisa Alther
3.53 avg rating β 426 ratings 
83. 
The Last Giants: The Rise and Fall of the African Elephant
by:
Levison Wood
4.14 avg rating β 245 ratings 
86. 
The Destruction of Atlantis: Compelling Evidence of the Sudden Fall of the Legendary Civilization
by:
Frank Joseph
3.66 avg rating β 110 ratings 
88. 
The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart
by:
Alicia Garza
4.35 avg rating β 2,402 ratings 88. 
Freefall Of The American University: How Our Colleges Are Corrupting The Minds And Morals Of The Next Generation
by:
Jim Nelson Black
3.25 avg rating β 16 ratings 91. 
What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam & Modernity in the Middle East
by:
Bernard Lewis
3.54 avg rating β 3,867 ratings 91. 
The Fall of Natural Man: The American Indian and the Origins of Comparative Ethnology
by:
Anthony Pagden
3.86 avg rating β 79 ratings 91. 
From the Ashes of Angels: The Forbidden Legacy of a Fallen Race
by:
Andrew Collins
3.97 avg rating β 531 ratings 
94. 
Let the Lord Sort Them: The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty
by:
Maurice Chammah
4.11 avg rating β 855 ratings 94. 
So Sad to Fall in Battle: An Account of War Based on General Tadamichi Kuribayashi's Letters from Iwo Jima
by:
Kumiko Kakehashi
4.17 avg rating β 1,009 ratings 
97. 
Eyewitness: The rise and fall of Dorling Kindersley: The Inside Story of a Publishing Phenomenon (DK Eyewitness Books) 3.96 avg rating β 24 ratings
