1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric H. Cline

1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric H. Cline

It’s common for scholars to talk about significant downturns in civilization in the Bronze Age. One of the most famous collapses was that of Mycenean Greece. Empires rise and fall. What Cline does in this book is take a broad look at all the major bronze age cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean in the centuries leading up to 1177 B.C., showing how a combination of climate change (centuries long periods of drought), earthquakes, pestilence, and invasions rocked the increasingly sophisticated international economy leading to a collapse of all the major powers in the years surrounding 1177 B.C. It’s a wonderful work which will teach the reader a lot about the Bronze Age civilizations and why they fell.