The Roman Empire has been crumbling for 400 years, so it's likely that we won't experience the collapse of society as described in most history books either - life is too short for that. Unless a black swan comes along…

To answer your question, I like to come back to the book because it's written in the style of Dan Brown :) - short, punchy chapters. And it still makes sense (to me).

Also, biofuels based on most crops other than sugar cane, in addition to not being very helpful in the fight against AGW, triggered large price spikes and political turmoil in a dozen different countries at once. Perhaps you heard of this event, we call it the Arab Spring. We are still dealing with the fallout of it.