1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed
1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed is a 2014 book about ancient history by Eric H. Cline. It was published in 2014 by Princeton University Press.
Cover of the first edition | |
Author | Eric H. Cline |
---|---|
Audio read by | Andy Caploe |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Series | Turning Points in Ancient History |
Subject | Late Bronze Age collapse |
Publisher | Princeton University Press |
Publication date | 2014 |
Media type | Print, e-book, audio book |
Pages | 264 |
Awards | 2014 The New York Post’s Best Books. 2014 The Australian’s Best Books of the Year. 2015 The Federalist’s Notable Books. |
ISBN | 9780691140896 |
GN778.25.C55 2014 | |
LC Class | https://lccn.loc.gov/2013032059 |
Website | Publisher - 1177 B.C |
Description
The book focuses on Cline's hypothesis for the Late Bronze Age collapse of civilization, a transition period that affected the Egyptians, Hittites, Canaanites, Cypriots, Minoans, Mycenaeans, Assyrians and Babylonians; varied heterogeneous cultures populating eight powerful and flourishing states intermingling via trade, commerce, exchange and "cultural piggybacking," despite "all the difficulties of travel and time."[1] He presents evidence to support a "perfect storm" of "multiple interconnected failures," meaning that more than one natural and man-made cataclysm caused the disintegration and demise of an ancient civilization that incorporated "empires and globalized peoples."[1][2] This ended the Bronze Age, and ended the Mycenaean, Minoan, Trojan, Hittite, and Babylonian cultures.[2]
Before this book, the leading hypothesis during previous decades attributed the civilizations' collapse mostly to Sea Peoples of unknown origin.[1][2][3][4]
Awards
This book has won the following awards:[2]
- Winner of the 2014 Award for the Best Popular Book, American Schools of Oriental Research
- Honorable Mention for the 2015 PROSE Award in Archeology & Anthropology, Association of American Publishers
- One of The New York Post’s Best Books of 2014
- One of The Federalist's Notable Books of 2015
- One of The Australian's Best Books of the Year in 2014, chosen by filmmaker Bruce Beresford
- Selected as the 'Book of the Semester' Fall 2016, David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies at Brigham Young University
See also
- Late Bronze Age collapse
- Etymology of Syria
References
- Gopnik, Adam (19 March 2014). "Of Hippos and Kings". New Yorker. Condé Nast. Retrieved 5 July 2017.
- Summary (2014). "1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed, Eric H. Cline". Princeton University Press. Archived from the original on 2017-07-19. Retrieved 7 July 2017.
- Knapp, A. Bernard. "The Year Civilization Collapsed". History Today. Retrieved 5 July 2017.
- Karacic, Steven (August 2015). "Eric H. Cline, 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed". Bryn Mawr Classical Review (BMCR). Bryn Mawr College. Retrieved 5 July 2017.
Further reading
- Cline, Eric H. (27 May 2014). "Climate Change Doomed the Ancients". New York Times. Retrieved 3 July 2017.
- Knapp, A. and Manning, S. (Free PDF download) (January 2016). "End of the Late Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean". American Journal of Archaeology. 120 (1): 99-149 (51 pages). doi:10.3764/aja.120.1.0099. JSTOR 10.3764/aja.120.1.0099.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
- Book review: Warford, Erin (17 Mar 2017). "1177 B.C. - The Year Civilization Collapsed". The European Legacy. Taylor & Francis. 22 (5): 634–636. doi:10.1080/10848770.2017.1304058.
- Book review: Hall, Thomas D. (Free PDF download) (2014). "A "Perfect Storm" in the Collapse of Bronze Age Civilization? Useful Insights and Roads not Taken" (PDF). Cliodynamics: The Journal of Quantitative History and Cultural Evolution. 5 (1): 1–12. doi:10.21237/C7clio5125316. University of California (publisher).
- Book review: Kotsonas, Antonis (2015). "E.H. Cline 1177 B.C. The Year Civilization Collapsed...". The Classical Review. 65 (2): 611–612. doi:10.1017/S0009840X15000128.
External links
- ISBN 978-0-691-14089-6
- Publisher's site for this book
- Professor Cline's video lecture on his book.
Ancient Syria and Mesopotamia | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Syria | Northern Mesopotamia | Southern Mesopotamia | |||||||
c. 3500–2350 BCE | Semitic nomads | Sumerian city-states | |||||||
c. 2350–2200 BCE | Akkadian Empire | ||||||||
c. 2200–2100 BCE | Gutians | ||||||||
c. 2100–2000 BCE | Third Dynasty of Ur (Sumerian Renaissance) | ||||||||
c. 2000–1800 BCE | Mari and other Amorite city-states | Old Assyrian Empire (Northern Akkadians) | Isin/Larsa and other Amorite city-states | ||||||
c. 1800–1600 BCE | Old Hittite Kingdom | Old Babylonian Empire (Southern Akkadians) | |||||||
c. 1600–1400 BCE | Mitanni (Hurrians) | Karduniaš (Kassites) | |||||||
c. 1400–1200 BCE | Middle Hittite Kingdom | Middle Assyria | |||||||
c. 1200–1150 BCE | Bronze Age Collapse ("Sea Peoples") | Arameans | |||||||
c. 1150–911 BCE | Phoenicia | Neo-Hittite city-states |
Aram- Damascus |
Arameans | Middle Babylonia | Chal- de- ans | |||
911–729 BCE | Neo-Assyrian Empire | ||||||||
729–609 BCE | |||||||||
626–539 BCE | Neo-Babylonian Empire (Chaldeans) | ||||||||
539–331 BCE | Achaemenid Empire | ||||||||
336–301 BCE | Macedonian Empire (Ancient Greeks and Macedonians) | ||||||||
311–129 BCE | Seleucid Empire | ||||||||
129–63 BCE | Seleucid Empire | Parthian Empire | |||||||
63 BCE–243 CE | Roman Empire/Byzantine Empire (Syria) | ||||||||
243–636 CE | Sassanid Empire |