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

The historian writing about the Aegean Bronze Age faces an uncomfortable choice. They can take a point of view and make a compelling narrative but only at the cost of simplifying or ignoring the scanty and contradictory evidence. Or they can delve into the complexities and the current arguments in the field at the cost of providing a confused turmoil into which the reader is lost. Eric Cline does very, very well at charting a course between those extremes; he makes it possible to follow the story while exposing and exploring the counter-evidence and competing theories.The late bronze age in the Aegean, as he describes so eloquently in the opening chapter, is a frighteningly familiar world; wide-spread nets of trade and economic interdependence, a complex weave of diplomatic relationships, the pressures of environmental change and a growing undercurrent of violence. In what seems like a blink over half the great players were seemingly wiped from the map (although all may not be as it seems there). One can't help thinking of the phrase "Too big to fail" and wondering if there is a warning here for us.It is also a fascinating, vibrant time. And a time in which foundational legends were being laid; set in this time, though not neccessarily happening in it, are the Greek myths, the Homeric epics that shape so much of the self-perception of the Western world, the events of Exodus...and this is also the height of Egypt's power, the New Kingdom, from where also comes so many of the stories and myths which would be recorded and elaborated in the Ptolemiac.The book is long, but still too short for the subject. Fortunately it is packed with citations. And dense, too; I am on my fourth or fifth reading and I'm still finding new things to explore.As with all history, but particularly history of the Ancient World, archaeology and the associated fields have seen incredible advances over the past years. Even Egyptology, buttressed by the volume of texts (and the historical accidents that made them translatable rather early on) is changing paradigms almost daily. In my humble, amateur opinion, it isn't worth reading a history written more than twenty years ago unless you are interested in the history of history. Fortunately, then, this is a recent book by someone who is active in the field. He honestly explores outmoded concepts such as the Dorian Invasions and manages to give both a historical perspective and ways in which the concept is still useful in a more modern conception.Oh, right. And it is incredibly readable for the amateur and the non-specialist. This is a serious history, make no doubt about it (the pages and pages of citations should tell you that). But it is fully accessible to any reader.

This book is a short introduction to the decline and fall of Mediterranean Bronze Age civilization. Well, there isn't much decline. The societies just seem to collapse over a relatively short time period. The characters, at least what we know of them, are fascinating.There are lots of holes in the narrative, which I assume is due to the sparsity of historical evidence. Many of the details were learned in the last 2 centuries from tablets recovered from archaeological expeditions.I cannot vouch for the book's accuracy because I am not a student of this period of history, but it seems that the author provides a citation for every assertion. The author's speculations and hypotheses are clearly recognizable as such and can be taken in good faith by a conscientious reader.The book's title is slightly misleading, since the bulk of the book concerns a 300 year period of history, and the climactic collapse spans decades. The author briefly argues that 1177 is a good benchmark year to declare the Bronze Age civilization to have collapsed, but I imagine that the publisher wanted the book to have a bolder title than "The Gradual Collapse of Mediterranean Bronze Age Civilization".The prose is well constructed, but some sections lag due to the technical nature of the discussion of archeological excavations. The proliferate names of cities and characters can become confusing--the author attempts to compensate for this with an index of names and several charts near the beginning of the book--but a casual reader can forget most of them and still follow the book's general arguments and the trajectory of history.I find the theory of a general systems collapse intriguing. I wonder what the future of this field of study will reveal.Edit: One more thing to note. The hardcover version has unevenly trimmed pages (see product image gallery). This gives the book a nice antique feel, but it also makes it more difficult to skip around the book to read footnotes and to consult the index, tables, and maps.I don't know if this applies to other editions.