Our era is ripe with the odor of doomsday, and in movies and books, our imaginations run wild with visions of abandoned cities and returning to the land in a desperate attempt at survival. Archaeologist Chris Begley argues, however, that we completely misunderstand how disaster works. Examining such bygone civilizations as the Maya and Rome, he explains that these breakdowns occurred through long processes of change, not sudden disasters. Begley clarifies that it was communities, not lone heroes, who survived past apocalypses—and who will survive the next.