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[–] 15355718? ago 

If the goal is to get ideas about where we are historically, you might try Tainter's "The Collapse of Complex Societies".

Cover blurb:

"Political disintegration is a persistent feature of world history. The Collapse of Complex Societies, though written by an archaeologist, will therefore strike a chord throughout the social sciences. Any explanation of societal collapse carries lessons not just for the study of ancient societies, but for the members of all such societies in both the present and future. Dr. Tainter describes nearly two dozen cases of collapse and reviews more than 2000 years of explanations. He then develops a new and far-reaching theory that accounts for collapse among diverse kinds of societies, evaluating his model and clarifying the processes of disintegration by detailed studies of the Roman, Mayan and Chacoan collapses."

Relevance? We are at the end of the (cheap) Oil Age and there is nothing on the horizon that has the slightest chance of replacing it (Google, "the cubic mile of oil"). So modernity cannot continue much longer. What will replace it? Certainly something much simpler. But something much simpler cannot maintain 7.5 billion souls, so there are interesting times ahead.