Buy it from Amazon
| First Written | 2014 |
| Genre | History |
| Origin | US |
| Publisher | Princeton University Press |
| ISBN-10 | 0691140898 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0691140896 |
| My Copy | library harback |
| First Read | March 30, 2016 |
1177 B.C. The Year Civilization Collapsed
A whirlwind tour of the end of the Bronze Age civilizations, which I know next to nothing about, and why its empires all collapsed at right about the same time. Verdict: a hot mess of climate change ('drought'), serial earthquakes, invasions from outside, rebellions inside, big ol' regular wars, and the accompanying disruption in global trade: all working together to multiply each other's effects.
Pretty academic, and spends most of its time surveying the state of the region (Greece-Egypt-turkey-Levantine-Mesopotamia-etc) circa 1400-1200bc. Pretty fascinating, really!
Noted on March 31, 2016
Carol Bell’s comparison of the strategic importance of tin in the Bronze Age to that of crude oil in today’s world might be particularly apt in this hypothetical situation.
Quoted on April 1, 2016
We are told at one point that a Hittite king named Mursili I, grandson and successor of the above-named Hattusili I, marched his army all the way to Mesopotamia, a journey of over one thousand miles, and attacked the city of Babylon in 1595 BC, burning it to the ground and bringing to an end the two-hundred-year-old dynasty made famous by Hammurabi “the Law-Giver.” Then, instead of occupying the city, he simply turned the Hittite army around and headed for home, thus effectively conducting the longest drive-by shooting in history.
Quoted on April 1, 2016