The world isn't just in crisis. It's in polycrisis, and plenty of people admit that. So why is it so hard to do much about it? This book aims to answer that question. In a word, the answer is power. More accurately it's because of something called the Maximum Power Principle. More accurately still it's down to the default manner in which people, collectively, have put this principle into practice. In order to unpack that claim this book joins the dots provided by a number of different disciplines: sociology, biology, ecology, thermodynamics, complexity science, anthropology, economics, philosophy, and last, but not least, Christian theology. In doing so it argues that the only viable alternative to business as usual involves reconnecting power to wisdom; this means looking afresh at the story of a certain first-century West Asian tradesman.