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REVIEW BY SARAH GRIFFITHS
In his 2014 book 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed (reviewed in AE 85) Eric Cline charted the ‘perfect storm of calamities’ that led to the sudden collapse of the thriving interconnected Bronze Age civilisations. In this equally gripping sequel, Cline considers the immediate aftermath, exploring how, over the next 500 years, civilisations responded, and asking why some societies endured while others disappeared.
Egypt, Israel, and the southern Levant are considered in the first chapter, beginning with the assassination of Ramesses III (c.1155 BC), as Egypt faced 200 years of low Nile floods, drought, and famine. Egypt as a nation survived the collapse, but would never again rise to the heights of power seen in the New Kingdom. In the Levant, the retreat of the Egyptians and the sacking of the major cities by the Sea Peoples led to the emergence of the Israelites, who were able to take advantage of the power vacuum.
The Assyrians and Babylonians (Chapter 2) fared well initially, but when drought, famine, and plague finally caught up with them, it would take the Assyrians two centuries to recover – and the Babylonians even longer. By contrast, the Cypriots and Phoenicians (Chapter 3) flourished following the Collapse – proving to be ‘resilient as well as innovative’: the Phoenicians won control of the Mediterranean trade routes, while the Cypriots exported iron goods and technology. The Hittites (Chapter 4), however, ‘failed to navigate the change to the Iron Age’, although some constituent areas were able to weather the storm. The Mycenaeans of Greece and Minoans of Crete (Chapter 5) also disappeared by the end of the 11th century BC; it would be more than 600 years before Classical Greek culture emerged.
In his analysis (Chapter 6), Cline argues that this period was not the ‘Dark Age’ it was once thought to be, but rather a period of innovation, transformation, and regeneration. From this emerged the Iron Age and ‘a set of ideas and cultures that ultimately resulted in the world to which we now belong’. Using modern studies, such as the concept of the ‘adaptive cycle’ (collapse as part of the natural cycle of societies) and IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) reports on recent disasters, he compares the relative resilience of the ancient societies, and asks if the events of 3,000 years ago hold any additional lessons for us today as we face our own ‘perfect storm of calamities’. The answer to this is ‘yes’: societies can survive collapse, ‘provided that we are resilient enough and able to cope, adapt, or transform as necessary’. We have much to learn from the ancient civilisations – both the survivors and those that became extinct.
You can win a copy of this book in our competition here.
After 1177 BC: The Survival of Civilizations
by Eric H Cline
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2024
ISBN 978-691-19213-0
HARDBACK, £28
