1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Turning Points in Ancient History, 1)
1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Turning Points in Ancient History, 1) book cover

1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Turning Points in Ancient History, 1)

Paperback – September 22, 2015

by
Price
$50.98
Format
Paperback
Pages
264
Publisher
Princeton University Press
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-0691168388
Dimensions
5.5 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches
Weight
8.8 ounces

Description

"Winner of the 2014 Award for the Best Popular Book, American Schools of Oriental Research""The memorable thing about Cline's book is the strangely recognizable picture he paints of this very faraway time. . . . It was as globalized and cosmopolitan a time as any on record, albeit within a much smaller cosmos. The degree of interpenetration and of cultural sharing is astonishing." ---Adam Gopnik, New Yorker "A fascinating look at the Late Bronze Age, proving that whether for culture, war, economic fluctuations or grappling with technological advancement, the conundrums we face are never new, but merely renewed for a modern age." ---Larry Getlen, New York Post "Cline has created an excellent, concise survey of the major players of the time, the latest archaeological developments, and the major arguments, including his own theories, regarding the nature of the collapse that fundamentally altered the area around the Mediterranean and the Near East." ---Evan M. Anderson, Library Journal "A remarkable book that brings forth not just a piece of history, but also lessons from the past." ---Mihai Andrei, ZME Science "Fresh and engaging." ---Andrew Robinson, Current World Archaeology "The 12th century BCE is one of the watershed eras of world history. Empires and kingdoms that had dominated late Bronze Age western Asia and the eastern Mediterranean collapsed." ― Choice "Cline explores a vast array of variables that could have led to the disruption of the society of this era, including earthquakes, famines, droughts, warfare, and, most notably, invasions by the 'Sea Peoples.'" ― Publishers Weekly "A detailed but accessible synthesis. . . . [O]ffers students and the interested lay antiquarian a sense of the rich picture that is emerging from debates among the ruins." ---Scott McLemee, Inside Higher Ed "In this enjoyable new book, Eric H. Cline has set himself an ambitious task: Not only must he educate a popular audience about the wealth and power of the eastern Mediterranean civilizations of the Bronze Age, he must then make his readers care that, some time around the year 1200 B.C., these empires, kingdoms, and cities suffered a series of cataclysms from which they never recovered." ---Susan Kristol, Weekly Standard "[An] engaging book. . . . Cline builds a convincing case for his theory over a long and absorbing tour of the Late Bronze Age.”" ---Josephine Quinn, London Review of Books "A wonderful example of scholarship written for the non-expert. Cline clearly pulls together the engaging story of the interactions among the major empires of the Late Bronze Age and puts forth a reasonable theory explaining why they seem to have evaporated as quickly as moisture on a hot afternoon." ---Fred Reiss, San Diego Jewish World "Cline's work reveals eerie parallels between the geopolitics of the first years of 12th century B.C. and today's 21st century. 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed is history, but reads like a good mystery novel. Cline draws readers into his tale, revealing surprises throughout. It is all the more fascinating for being true, and for its relevance to today's world." ---Mark Lardas, Daily News "Cline has written one of this year's most interesting books." ---Jona Lendering, NRC Handelsblad "Extremely valuable for scholars, yet . . . easily understandable by general readers." ---Richard A. Gabriel, Military History Quarterly "Cline is clearly in command of the textual record and his reading of it is the book's real strength." ---A. Bernard Knapp, History Today "Written in a lively, engaging style." ---Michael McGaha, Middle East Media and Book Reviews " 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed is a thoughtful analysis of one of the great mysteries of human history. . . . Highly recommended." ---James A. Cox, Midwest Book Review "[T]his work masterfully incorporates the present state of research into a welcome reevaluation of a period less known to the general public, the crisis of Late Bronze Age civilization. . . . [E}ven more brilliant is the spin on the similarities between the predicament of this area three millennia ago and now." ---Barbara Cifola, American Historical Review "There are few published titles which focus on the tumultuous events that took place in the Eastern Mediterranean at approximately 1200 BCE. . . . Cline's 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed stands out among the rest as one of the best and most thoroughly researched. . . . This book is presented as a mystery novel. . . . One thing is for certain, once started, you will not want to put it down." ― Ancient Origins "A gripping mystery story with clues to follow and evidence to analyze." ---SG, Ancient Egypt Magazine "Essential." ---Thomas F. Bertonneau, Brussels Journal "Well-written, very fairly argued, and excellent value, it will set the agenda for Late Bronze Age studies for some time to come." ---Peter Jones, Classics for All "Fascinating. . . . [A]voids the tedium of so many academic writers." ---Bruce Beresford, filmmaker "Eric H. Cline has written a work of great scholarship, but has written in a manner so that the non-expert . . . can not only understand, but also appreciate it." ---Don Vincent, Open History "I don't know when I've appreciated a book as much as 1177 B.C. If you enjoy learning, you will enjoy this book! Highly recommended." ---Thomas A. Timmes, UNRV History "Cline expertly and briskly takes the reader through the power politics of the fifteenth, fourteenth, and thirteenth centuries BC with excursuses on important archaeological discoveries and introductions for each of the major players. No reader with a pulse could fail to be captivated by the details." ---Dimitri Nakassis, Mouseion "Cline's book is something special in ancient history writing. . . . The book is up to date in its research, covers a lot of ground, is careful in its conclusions, and will be referred to and cited by students of Aegean and eastern Mediterranean prehistory, discussed by the scholarly community, as well as read by the interested public. Cline has done a good job of bringing the Late Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean to a very wide audience." ---Guy D. Middleton, American Journal of Archaeology "Remarkably prescient. . . . [A] convincing case for the relevance of ancient history to the modern world." ― Canadian Journal of History "The end of the Late Bronze Age, around the turn of the twelfth century BCE, was a civilizational collapse similar to the much better known fall of the Roman Empire seventeen centuries later. . . . The causes of this collapse have been among the enduring mysteries of ancient history and archaeology, a complicated detective story for which Eric Cline deftly serves as guide. Cline . . . presents for educated general readers a survey of the evidence and scholarship concerning the end of the Late Bronze Age. He also engagingly establishes the historical and geographical context of the collapse, complete with a motley and compelling cast of characters." ---Matthew A. Sears, Canadian Journal of History "This collapse has been a popular subject for scholars, not least our author, for a very long time. Here he usefully assembles the evidence and deduces that it was the very complexity of powers, their interrelationships through trade or war, that brought about the collapse, and he is probably right." ---John Boardman, Common Knowledge "The most analytically satisfying, accessible, and of course up-to-date treatment of one of the great enigmas of the ancient world." ---Christoph Bachhuber, Historian "Cline admirably acknowledges areas of existing scholarly controversy, while understandably emphasizing the consensus view in order to maintain the flow of his narrative. . . . He has a firm command of the textual, archaeological, and environmental evidence, and brings together a wealth of recent scholarship in an accessible form, a treatment which has been sorely lacking for this pivotal period. . . . [A] fine book." ---Erin Warford, European Legacy " 1177 BC still offers the best treatment of the subject that is currently available. If you haven’t read it yet, I recommend that you do." ---Josho Brouwers, Ancient World Magazine “ 1177 B.C. tells the story of one of history’s greatest mysteries. Unknown invaders shattered the splendid civilizations of the Bronze Age Mediterranean in a tidal wave of fire and slaughter, before Egypt’s pharaoh turned them back in a fierce battle on the banks of the Nile. We do not know who these attackers were, and perhaps we never will; but no archaeologist is better equipped to guide us through this dramatic story than Eric Cline. 1177 B.C. is the finest account to date of one of the turning points in history.” ―Ian Morris, author of Why the West Rules―for Now “This book is a very valuable and very timely addition to the scholarship on the end of the Late Bronze Age. Cline provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary, and up-to-date treatment of one of the most dramatic and enigmatic periods in the history of the ancient world.” ―Trevor Bryce, author of The World of the Neo-Hittite Kingdoms: A Political and Military History “This is an excellent, thought-provoking book that brings to life an era that is not well known to most readers.” ―Amanda H. Podany, author of Brotherhood of Kings: How International Relations Shaped the Ancient Near East “This enthralling book describes one of the most dramatic and mysterious processes in the history of mankind―the collapse of the Bronze Age civilizations. Cline walks us through events that transpired three millennia ago, but as we follow him on this intriguing sojourn, lurking in the back of our minds are tantalizing, perpetual questions: How can prosperous cultures disappear? Can this happen again; to us?” ―Israel Finkelstein, coauthor of The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts “Impressively marshaling the most recent archaeological and historical evidence, Eric Cline sets the record straight: there was a ‘perfect storm’ of migrations, rebellions, and climate change that resulted in the collapse of states that were already unstable in the Late Bronze Age. There followed an ‘age of opportunity’ for new kinds of political systems and ideologies that remade the world of the eastern Mediterranean in the first millennium B.C. Onward and upward with collapse!” ―Norman Yoffee, University of Michigan “Cline has written a wonderfully researched and well-crafted overview of one of the most fascinating, complex, and debated periods in the history of the ancient world. Tying together an impressively broad range of disparate data, he weaves together a very convincing re-creation of the background, mechanisms, and results of the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age in the eastern Mediterranean and beyond.” ―Aren Maeir, Bar-Ilan University "This enthralling book describes one of the most dramatic and mysterious processes in the history of mankind--the collapse of the Bronze Age civilizations. Cline walks us through events that transpired three millennia ago, but as we follow him on this intriguing sojourn, lurking in the back of our minds are tantalizing, perpetual questions: How can prosperous cultures disappear? Can this happen again; to us?" --Israel Finkelstein, coauthor of The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts "Impressively marshaling the most recent archaeological and historical evidence, Eric Cline sets the record straight: there was a 'perfect storm' of migrations, rebellions, and climate change that resulted in the collapse of states that were already unstable in the Late Bronze Age. There followed an 'age of opportunity' for new kinds of political systems and ideologies that remade the world of the eastern Mediterranean in the first millennium B.C. Onward and upward with collapse!" --Norman Yoffee, University of Michigan "Cline has written a wonderfully researched and well-crafted overview of one of the most fascinating, complex, and debated periods in the history of the ancient world. Tying together an impressively broad range of disparate data, he weaves together a very convincing re-creation of the background, mechanisms, and results of the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age in the eastern Mediterranean and beyond." --Aren Maeir, Bar-Ilan University " 1177 B.C. tells the story of one of history's greatest mysteries. Unknown invaders shattered the splendid civilizations of the Bronze Age Mediterranean in a tidal wave of fire and slaughter, before Egypt's pharaoh turned them back in a fierce battle on the banks of the Nile. We do not know who these attackers were, and perhaps we never will; but no archaeologist is better equipped to guide us through this dramatic story than Eric Cline. 1177 B.C. is the finest account to date of one of the turning points in history." --Ian Morris, author of Why the West Rules--for Now "This book is a very valuable and very timely addition to the scholarship on the end of the Late Bronze Age. Cline provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary, and up-to-date treatment of one of the most dramatic and enigmatic periods in the history of the ancient world." --Trevor Bryce, author of The World of the Neo-Hittite Kingdoms: A Political and Military History "This is an excellent, thought-provoking book that brings to life an era that is not well known to most readers." --Amanda H. Podany, author of Brotherhood of Kings: How International Relations Shaped the Ancient Near East Eric H. Cline is professor of classics and anthropology and director of the Capitol Archaeological Institute at George Washington University. An active archaeologist, he has excavated and surveyed in Greece, Crete, Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, and Jordan. His many books include From Eden to Exile: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Bible and The Trojan War: A Very Short Introduction . Twitter @digkabri Read more

Features & Highlights

  • A bold reassessment of what caused the Late Bronze Age collapse
  • In 1177 B.C., marauding groups known only as the "Sea Peoples" invaded Egypt. The pharaoh's army and navy managed to defeat them, but the victory so weakened Egypt that it soon slid into decline, as did most of the surrounding civilizations. After centuries of brilliance, the civilized world of the Bronze Age came to an abrupt and cataclysmic end. Kingdoms fell like dominoes over the course of just a few decades. No more Minoans or Mycenaeans. No more Trojans, Hittites, or Babylonians. The thriving economy and cultures of the late second millennium B.C., which had stretched from Greece to Egypt and Mesopotamia, suddenly ceased to exist, along with writing systems, technology, and monumental architecture. But the Sea Peoples alone could not have caused such widespread breakdown. How did it happen?In this major new account of the causes of this "First Dark Ages," Eric Cline tells the gripping story of how the end was brought about by multiple interconnected failures, ranging from invasion and revolt to earthquakes, drought, and the cutting of international trade routes. Bringing to life the vibrant multicultural world of these great civilizations, he draws a sweeping panorama of the empires and globalized peoples of the Late Bronze Age and shows that it was their very interdependence that hastened their dramatic collapse and ushered in a dark age that lasted centuries.A compelling combination of narrative and the latest scholarship,
  • 1177 B.C.
  • sheds new light on the complex ties that gave rise to, and ultimately destroyed, the flourishing civilizations of the Late Bronze Age―and that set the stage for the emergence of classical Greece.

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Most Helpful Reviews

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Excrutiating....and Not In a Good Way.

Other reviewers have eviscerated 1177 BC, pointing out its numerous flaws. So, I'll just provide an overview of my reaction to in reading it.

I was looking forward to a description of the more or less immediate background to a general Western Mediterranean social and economic collapse focused on 1177 BC. I didn't get it. What I got instead was a long, detailed, repetitive, somewhat disorganized, review of the Bronze Age. The text was replete with references to scholarly differences, archeological theories rising and falling, the etymology of place and tribal names, and the lack of any conclusions of any kind for any purpose ... with the exception of concluding that there were no conclusions.

The general topic of the terminus of the Bronze age doesn't occur until page 139 of 170 pages of the main body of the text. Then we are presented with a number of theories and each is determined to be insufficient. At this point, a mathematical modeling procedure called complexity theory is introduced to assert that, while no single factor -- heretofore dismissed -- was sufficient to cause a transition from the Bronze to the Iron ages (not in 1177 BC, but over a period that might have lasted from decades to centuries), it must be that a combination of some sort of these factors must be, by elimination, the cause. More or less. Perhaps somewhat. Maybe.

Nowhere is it explained how complexity theory was applied in any systemic way to the issue at hand. I doubt that it was. Nor was any rationale provided to validate the idea of applying complexity theory to the issue. Except that complexity theory, in general, says that complex systems become overspecialized and that a fault in one area can cascade into others. So, our author concludes that, since complexity theory provides a conclusion that he could not develop, then complexity theory explains all. In some undefined way. Somehow. This progression is a glaring example of the logical fallacy of circulus in probando (circular reasoning).

Last, and by absolutely no means, least, Cline just can't resist calling upon climate change as a factor in the end of the Bronze age. The only facts he presents indicate that the late Bronze age was generally drier than earlier periods ... and he seizes upon this phenomenon to lecture us on contemporary climate change. Even though he does also state that a cooler period followed the drier period, but provides no specific dates relative to the fall of the various states. He also cites some archeologist who blames capitalism as a major factor in the fall of Bronze age civilizations. Because the central economies of the various Bronze age states couldn't control it. Marxism in the age of Ozymandias?

All in all, 1177 BC was a dull book written by an academic for academics, falsely marketed as popular history, badly structured, wandering, and without any discernible outcome. It is a shame. Cline knows a great deal about these eras. If he could only have broken out of his academic straight jacket, he might have produced something worth reading.

But he didn't. And it isn't.
65 people found this helpful
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Not interesting.

Very vaguely worded book. Poorly organized. Repeats points over and over again. NO conclusion, besides "something" happened.
The author is also very dedicated to his points about making people of Caanan, ie. Hebrews, a more central point of the story than perhaps they deserve. He continues to use the Hebrew Bible as a primary point, even saying "..but one has to wonder how the Bible could have gotten it so wrong?" (pg33). He then puts his explanation into the text as a proof point for the citations.
I would not recommend this book, or read it again, or cite it, or use it for anything else.
24 people found this helpful
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Don't waste your money.

This is an awful book. It is for me another example how you can get just about anything published these days. In summary, there is no new information, the authors writing style is slow and ponderous, and the bulk of the book is basically a rehash of the work of others, occasionally a rehash of a rehash. In my opinion, there is nothing new here and it is not "Astonishing" as mentioned on the cover.
The other main difficulty I'll put in the form of a question: How many times can you say the same thing over and over and over, sometimes literally within a couple of pages when you last said it?
This seems to me to be more of an essay that got out of hand with maybe some class notes thrown in.
I was really disappointed.
Out of hundreds of books I have read this is the first review I have written. I felt I had a duty to warn others.
Save your money and buy something else, perhaps one of the books on the Sea Peoples.
22 people found this helpful
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Disappointing

Cline's account of the archeological evidence surrounding the collapse of the walls at Jericho (see John Noble Wilford's article in the New York Times, 1990) was so flawed that I lost faith in everything else he had been saying, much of which was just conjecture anyway (a fair amount of Troy conjecture with very little to sink your teeth into). He pretends that scholarly opinion is united around the idea that evidence is lacking for an Israelite attack on the city.His footnote for this point is for an article he himself wrote. Further, his one repeated point, that there was trade and diplomacy in the eastern Mediterranean during this era, loses some of its punch the fiftieth time he says it.
15 people found this helpful
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What a flaming pile of garbage

Having trouble with insomnia? Look no further, this little diatribe will cure it for sure. Nothing new is presented and it’s mostly a rehash of known information. All the author did was compile that information and wrap in a new cover with a tantalizing title “1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed...”.

Only problem is that he spends almost NO time discussing the collapse and dawdles on and on and on some more. There is nothing more than a mini analysis of the pivotal battle between the “Sea Peoples” and Ramses III.

As another reviewer here on Amazon put it “The title is the very definition of setting up a strawman”.

I strongly recommend you not waste your time or money on this item.
14 people found this helpful
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A Scientific Account

Popular books about ancient civilization that adhere to scientific skepticism and avoid exaggeration, pet theories and needless tangents that either try to buttress or debunk biblical accounts are a rare phenomenon. Fortunately, Eric Cline’s short work on the cause of the demise of ancient Bronze Age Mediterranean civilization succeeds on all of these criteria.

While personally arguing for a wide variety of causes including invasion, climate change, drought and the waning of international trade routes Dr. Cline does not go beyond current evidence in supporting this theory. Much of the book is in fact a counter play between describing the archaeological and textual evidence and then admitting that it is not strong enough to draw definitive conclusions.

I do have two hesitations before recommending the book to others. First, the book is fairly focused on its theme: what caused the downfall of civilization circa 1177 BC. Readers interested in learning about the cultures of this time may be disappointed.

Secondly, the author explicitly argues for parallels between this era and our present one. While surface similarities certainly exist, I wouldn’t put much weight on this analogy without a more thorough comparison which shows similar forces are at work.

Even so, the recommendation holds. If you like your history with more scientific rigor than is seen on most popular cable channels this is a good choice.
10 people found this helpful
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MISSING - THE ELEPHANT IN THE AEGEAN

I am no expert on the ancient world, but I am sorely disappointed with this book. For example, Cline describes the expedition of (Queen) Pharaoh Hatshepsut to the land of Punt.(p. 27) He acknowledges no one is certain just where Punt was, but he places it in the band from Sudan to Ethiopia to Somalia to Yemen and Arabia. Cline includes a description of the queen of Punt, who had extra large buttocks and a fat belly. Unfortunately, physical anthropology is now politically incorrect and has been squeezed from university curricula, but in the 1800s the Hottentots were viewed as so different as to possibly be a different species, and a few Hottentot women were displayed in Europe like animals because of their unusual physique – the large protruding buttocks and fat bellies. Sarah Bartman (various spellings) was one of the Hottentot Venuses displayed. Decades ago when I enrolled in an ancient history course, the professor spoke of Hatshepsut’s explorations, contending that the Egyptians even circumnavigated Africa, and the sailors complained that land was suddenly on the wrong side. Could the Queen of Punt been a Hottentot? Could Punt have been closer to southern Africa than to the Horn of Africa? Unfortunately, Cline does not even consider this possibility.

What caused the collapse of civilization in 1177 BC? “Systemic collapse.” Cline invokes a trendy phrase that simply means many factors – some earthquakes, some climate change, some droughts, some invasions by the Peoples of the Sea, some other invasions, some wars between this group and that, some internal revolts, some…and a dash of salt. Though he mentions Sherlock Holmes in the text, this book is more like a Sherlock ending thusly: “Well, Sherlock, who did kill the young woman in the red bathing suit by the swimming pool?” “Watson, don’t you understand, we all did it; we are all guilty.” Readers of Holmes would grit their teeth in anger at such a conclusion. So should the readers of Cline.

What could have caused the collapse of Bronze Age Civilization? There is an elephant in the room ignored by Cline (except on p. 93). I should rephrase, an elephant in the Aegean. When the Thera (Santorini) volcano erupted, scientists maintain that it was more powerful than the massive Krakatoa explosion of 1883 – one which had world-wide repercussions. If Thera were really a more power eruption, it surely would have had gargantuan effects on the nearby civilizations – the Minoan in Krete, the Mycenaean in Greece, the Egyptian, the Hittite and the Mittani in Turkey/Syria, the Assyrian, the Canaanites, et al. Surely, this eruption and tsunami might have unleashed the People of the Sea on quests to find land to replace what the floods had destroyed. Did Thera destroy Bronze Age Civilization?

Cline would argue, NO. The Thera explosion occurred too early, maybe 1650 BC, or 1500 BC at the latest). (Cline is so politically correct he wastes ink by continually writing BCE. Does he also write that his paperback was published in 2014 of the Common Era? 2014 CE?) Cline contends that the Bronze Age Civilizations (BAC) flourished after Thera erupted. The generally accepted chronology is based on Egyptian sources, but until a century ago, we had never heard of King Tut or Akhenaton or the Amarna letters that Cline quotes. Is it possible that the generally accepted chronology is miscalculated, off by more than a century? Perhaps Thera did destroy the BAC, not on 1177 BC but in 1577 BC?

Cline interprets Akhenaton’s religious revolution in Egypt, in part, as an attempt to regain pharoahnic power from the various priesthoods. Cline assesses Akhenaton as “calculating and a powermonger,” and his religion “ a shrewd and diplomatic move.”(52) Yet, Cline never bothers to ask how one of the hymns to Aton wound up as Psalm 104 in the Bible. What were the links between Atonism and Judaism? And what does Cline’s section on the Trojan War add to our knowledge of this event?

Bottom line – this book promises much, but delivers little. Cline does not think outside the box and fails to ask questions that might better answer why BAC collapsed.
8 people found this helpful
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Save Time and Money--Read the Reviews

Professor Cline makes some very interesting points, but he repeats himself and brings up examples that are hundreds of years away from what he is trying to prove. His editorial team was either underpaid or did not spend enough time on the text--repetitive, rambling and sometimes illogical.

Save your time and money. Read the reviews to understand the gist of Cline's arguments.
6 people found this helpful
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Is There a Real Reason for This Book ?

The first 2/3 of this book is interesting, providing an overview of the archaeologist's view of trade and communication between the powers-that-were (PTW) in the eastern Mediterranean from ~1300 BC to ~1200 BC. Somewhat repetitive. The argument for an illustrious highly interconnected international civilization seems a bit forced; more fact, less interpretation would be desirable.

A major criticism is that there is no presentation of why the PTW arose in the first place; how can we intelligently consider their demise without understanding how they came into being?

The simultaneous collapse of the PTW may be a fact, but it's treated as an assumption. Maybe appropriate among professional archaeologists, but as an ignorant learner, I'd like a short chapter laying out the facts. The disappearance of trade and communication between the PTW, after all but Egypt collapsed, is not surprising. Who is left to write to ? Trade is a dangerous occupation in the absence of strong peace-keeping forces, which will have been severely undercut by the PTW's downfall. Who can pay for the trade items ? No net without nodes.

There is no consideration of surrounding peoples beyond the PTW. While major civilizations may have been lacking outside the PTW, large towns of Bronze Age people did exist, and numerous steppe people. These will have always exerted pressure on the PTW. The PTW did not exist in a vacuum, but are treated that way in this book.

There exists considerable archaeological evidence for negative climate change forcing the demise or drastic change of Bronze Age civilizations. The PTW were near each other, so a climate change that affected one would likely affect all. Egypt is the exception, because its water supply originates thousands of miles away from the Mediterranean. It is also the furthest south. Egyptian civilization continued.

When water and food become scarce, social tensions ignite. Unrelieved drought or cold can cause a dwindling food supply and eventual starvation. People react, sometimes violently, or just leave. Others, more desperate or better able to cope with dry and cold, arrive.

There's no need to raise the "butterfly effect" or theories of "collapse due to complexity". The book reaches to address a non-existant problem (simultaneous demise of the PTW). Also irritating is the lack of support for the Sea People. From this book, it would seem that they were just Ramses III's bad dream.
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Handicapped by Execution and Conformity

Spoilers below.

#1 Spoiler: The Titanic sinks in the end. Er, Late Bronze Age civilization in the eastern Mediterranean still goes tango uniform.

I wanted to fill a gap in my knowledge of history, one of them being the collapse of Late Bronze Age (LBA) civilization in the eastern Med. Up to this point, I had a few touchstones for that part of the world in time:
1. The Bible and its reference to all the players about that area
2. Egypt
3. Various Mesopotamian empires.
4. The Greece of Trojan War fame.
5. And then the Sea Peoples came and crashed the party.

1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (1177BC) claimed it would cover that and more. 1177BC gives an overview of the before/during/after states and chews over some of the causes.

BEFORE
The eastern Med and into Mesopotamia had developed into an interconnected economic system (at some level, to some extent). There were relations (political and in the flesh) between the various polities and trade, too. The usual western bound of the system was Greece, in particular Mycenae (Mycenaean) or Crete (Minoan). Anatolia was the stomping ground of the Hittites and the eastern bound was Babylon...but with the understanding that the tin mined in Afghanistan and brought to the Med was key to the "bronze" in the LBA. So, it had verifiable reach through Persia out to A-stan. Throughout the area, there were also smaller kingdoms that served to fill the gaps or provide the Belgian task of providing speed bumps for larger polities. The polities were all autocracies and some were empires. The smallest were city-state prototypes with an hereditary ruler and the largest were multi-ethnic empires. Egypt was the big kahuna during the entire LBA.

Trade brought durable & perishable goods back & forth, such that LBA Egyptian bits have been discovered in Greece and Mycenaean goods and styles in Egypt. It was suggested that much of this trade was centrally controlled. "Palace economics" might be a useful descriptor. The volume of this trade is unknown.

1177BC does a passable job describing LBA civilization, but not a great job. "Pretty good" would be excessive praise.

DURING/CAUSES
Here is where 1177BC is weakest. I get exposing the reader to all the reasonable possible causes, but does it have to be done in a way to tamp down any excitement or interest? Way to gut a dramatic episode of history of the drama. The wikipedia entry has similar thrilling prose:
[...]
Heck, I will copy from wiki to save the soporific quotations from 1177BC:
Code:
2.1 Environmental
2.1.1 Climate change
2.1.2 Volcanoes
2.1.3 Drought
2.2 Cultural
2.2.1 Migrations and raids
2.2.2 Ironworking
2.2.3 Changes in warfare
2.3 General systems collapse

Two tendencies stand out in the discussion of causes. One is the overwrought discussion of climate change and the other is the tendentious discussion of how many folk think the LBA collapse a peaceful melding of different folk coming together to form a new culture. Never mind the evidence of destruction and retrogression such that dark age and classical greeks thought the old ruined buildings were built by cyclops, as they thought it impossible to build with such large stones. Also, the application of complexity theory to LBA general systems collapse was clumsy and snooze-worthy. Last, the author never made a case for magnitude of trade/relations that would justify claims that its cessation would have a great material effect on the participants.

AFTER
As with any collapse, you see fewer people as multitudes died off PDQ. Less/no trade is evident. Polities are disintegrated or shrunken. Material culture is significantly poorer. Instead of "cyclopean" palaces, battlements, and temples; those who remain (or their replacements) built with and on top of the old rubble or gave up stonework altogether. Learning atrophies or dies out altogether (The written Greek language disappeared for hundreds of years).

The West had its own Dark Age after Rome fell in the west and the effects are drearily similar.

CONCLUSION
There is some useful data to the reader ignorant of the topic. The presentation/execution is not so much dry as...picayune? The author manages to make the topic smaller in his efforts to puff it up for contemporary relevance. And does he ever try to make it relevant. He brings it right up into 2013. So relevant. So similar to what is going on TODAY, so...desperate and unseemly.

The author places too much emphasis on the "kumbaya theories." This is a projection of contemporary progressive fantasy back on to history. They are an attempt to whitewash the violence inherent when disparate cultures clash. Similar emphasis is granted to the retro-marxist people's uprising theories. Yeah, it coulda happened. But the guys with the guns/weapons generally have an insurmountable advantage.

And last, the author's conclusion that what follows really wasn't a scare-quoted "Dark Age" is annoying. As if folk volunteer to be killed/starve in job lots, decide that living in dry stone houses is inferior to living in leaky ruins or rotting timber huts, and traipse though mud and shinola instead of over paved streets--too busy to pass on culture/learning/literacy to their children.

All in all, this is a 2/5 star book. Not awful, but generally disappointing. I would suggest a different book on this topic.
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