@Strandjunker Jared Diamond's 2005 'Collapse' book is much more readable than his 'Guns, Germs and Steel' and walks though some historical collapse scenarios. It has been over a decade since I read it so I'm sure the field has evolved and i might be misremembering, but the main gist I recall is there are too many rich people in advanced societies and too much pressure gets put on ecological systems that allowed the civ to succeed in the first place.