1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed

Good read. Gripping narrative.Just wouldn't purchase anything from PBC Distributors. Had a terrible experience.

I Like the product ...the writing is very clear

1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed is a great book that looks at the end of the Bronze Age and its affect on us today. The author, Eric H. Cline does a great job at taking a look at the civilizations that collapsed at the time identified as the Bronze Age. The author does a good job at relating the times during the end of the Bronze Age to today. He looks at the similarities that existed between them and us today.In 1177 B.C. the author shows the complex events that led to the collapse of great civilizations like the Greek and Egyptian empires, as well as others that occurred during this time period. The book is very well constructed and gives you a compelling look at the year 1177 B.C. I enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it to others.Thank you for reading my review

Analyses the invasion of 'Sea people' in a scientific way, but slightly suppresses the dramatic events associated with 'Sea people'.

Good

I was dismayed and frankly appalled, even shocked, that a distinguished scholar and author could speak about global trade in the Bronze Age leaving out the significant trade relations with the Harappan-Indus Valley civilization.Aside from Persian seals found in the Indus Valley and the extensive trade via the Arabia sea to the Middle East, it was a civilization that had an egalitarian sanitation system throughout its cities suggesting a far more democratic political environment than Egypt or Persia. Mohenjodara was the largest planned city of the ancient world and the civilization extended in breadth and width over a larger area than any other Bronze Age civilization. It also is now considered to have disappeared owing to the sustained drought period that affected all civilizations of the time.As an American residing in India and interested in history, I feel pained and saddened to see such a lapse reflecting a Western xenophobic bias and/or ignorance that should have ended 100 years ago. I hope that any future editions will be revised to reflect a global, rather than regional, perspective on Bronze Age civilizations that traded together

Great book! Eric H. Cline gives you all the facts on hand and the different opinions of other scholars to let you build your own opinion on what caused the collapse. The book takes you through the basic history of the major civilizations at the time in an entertaining and easy to navigate way.

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.

Merci à l'auteur, pour ce livre assez facile à lire, sur une période si éloignée, mais riches et dans une région si intéréssante: Mare NostrumAdapté / traduit d'un article sur historytoday.com:Eric H. Cline vise présenter les causes qui ont mis fin à l'âge du bronze tardif en Méditerranée orientale.Les chapitres 1 à 3 couvrent les 15e, 14e et 13e siècles av.Ils fournissent une série d’épisodes - par exemple, la guerre de Troie, l'exode, la bataille de Qadesh (1274)- intelligemment tissées pour montrer comment toutes les politiques de cette époque (la mer Égée, l'Anatolie, Chypre, le Levant, l'Égypte) étaient interconnectées économiquement.La question principale est de comprendre dans quelle mesure les «peuples de la mer», connus dans les documents égyptiens, furent responsables de destructions, archéologiquement attestées, allant de la mer Egée à l'ouest à la Mésopotamie à l'est ?Le quatrième «acte» et le cinquième chapitre concluent le drame en proclamant que la sécheresse, la famine, les tremblements de terre, les migrations et les rébellions internes ont conduit à un «effondrement du système». Tout cela est filtré à travers une longue discussion non concluante de la «théorie de la complexité».L'histoire de Cline embrasse les dramatis personae (rois, reines, pharaons), ainsi que les marchands, les navires et les marins impliqués dans les relations commerciales étendues qui caractérisèrent «l'ère internationale» de 300 ans menant au «désastre apocalyptique».

A really well written book that covers the myriad of issues that led up to the decline of civilization in such a short period of time. Using ideas and reference from a large cast of archeologists/scholars going back over a century your interest is maintained. Are we at a similar time in our existence and have we leant from history?

海の民によるレバント文明の破壊の歴史ですエジプトすら多大な影響を受けたのです