Human states and cities have been trying grow bigger than their neighbours, since the discovery of metal technologies - the copper and bronze ages, for 5000 years.  Domination by weaponized warriors became possible. Metal technology brought with it, mining, smelting and money, requiring states to exploit more energy, resources, and the sacrifice of forests.

Such group antagonism behaviours can be observed in our primate near-relatives. But prior to hard sharp metal weapons, the means were limited.

States and Corporations co-evolved as a "Metallurgical complex" It became necessary for states to compete or be dominated. Since then we have been perfecting the technologies of exploitation, and war. Civilization for the next 5 millennium has tried to organize around four tyrannies: Military domination, Economic capitalism, Ideology and Linear thinking.

We are not good at fixing the problems that our Megamachine causes. Mining corporations and wealth accumulation systems now dominate the globe. States are struggling to manage the end of growth. Our world is becoming crippled by our many accumulating problems, while our institutions keep trying to maintain their roles in causing them.

The Megamachine is run using people, and people can change their views and choices, which is what is happening now.

This book "The end of the Megamachine", by Fabian Scheidler, is the English Translation of the German Edition first published in 2015. The historical facts are well connected and argued, and they well illustrate the multiple system themes which dominate our civilisation.  We are plagued everywhere by the obsessions of national states and capitalism, organized around growth of the "metallurgical complex".  Australia is a typical example.