Publishers Weekly
★ 03/18/2024
Historian Cline follows up 1177 B.C., his bestselling study of the end of the Bronze Age, with a sweeping account of what came next. Picking up immediately after a “megadrought” resulted in broken trade networks, mass migrations, and political crises that caused the collapse of the ancient Mediterranean’s interconnected civilization, Cline moves on to recount how various remnants adapted. In Egypt, the reduction of the Nile’s flow due to drought caused economic slowdown and ultimately a loss of military might, leading to an era of coups and intrigues. Meanwhile, Greece underwent the collapse of the palace system that epitomized Homeric society; Cline notes that its demise “may have actually freed” regular people “from a tremendous burden.” The Assyrians and Babylonians proved more resilient; hit by “drought, famine, and plague,” they repeatedly bounced back. But it’s the innovative Phoenicians, Cline suggests, who really flourished in a freer, less hierarchical world order. Arising on the Levantine coast in a post-Hittite power vacuum, the Phoenicians were a collection of allied city-states who launched themselves west, establishing trading colonies across the Mediterranean. They brought with them a standardized alphabet (the ancestor of nearly all alphabetic scripts used today) and a game-changing metallurgic invention from Cyprus, iron. Cline distills an immense amount of material into a highly readable narrative that in its conclusion draws startling parallels with contemporary climate change. It’s a dizzying feat of scholarship. (Apr.)
From the Publisher
"Expert, ingenious and endlessly fascinating. . . . First in 1177 B.C. and now in After 1177 B.C., Mr. Cline has rewritten our understanding of a distant but resonant age."—-Dominic Green, Wall Street Journal
"Brilliant. . . . A superb work to interest history buffs for every period."—-Kirkus, starred review
"Cline distills an immense amount of material into a highly readable narrative that in its conclusion draws startling parallels with contemporary climate change. It’s a dizzying feat of scholarship."—-Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Where [1177 B.C.] offered an almost relentlessly grim depiction of decline and fall, [After 1177 B.C.] gives us a more granular, detailed look at how different societies coped with the transformations of the Late Bronze Age collapse in contrasting ways. . . . Curiously reassuring."—-Richard Kreitner, Slate
"Sequels aren't just for Hollywood blockbusters. Historian Eric H. Cline enjoyed a huge hit with his book about the end of the Bronze Age. In 1177 B.C.:The Year Civilization Collapsed he showed how remarkably interconnected the ancient world was some 3000 years ago and how that and a convergence of events led to its downfall and the First Dark Ages. Now what? That's the question he answers in After 1177 B.C., showing which nations rebuilt themselves, which new ones emerged and why? And keep an eye out for the "Sea Peoples;" they are a wily bunch."—-Michael Giltz, Parade
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2024-01-17
A brilliant survey of the ancient world’s recovery from a series of crises.
In 1177 B.C., classicist Cline described the cataclysmic end of the Bronze Age, its civilizations undone by war, climate change, famine, and other ailments. In this follow-up, he examines eight civilizations of the ancient eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, including the Greeks, Egyptians, and “Neo-Assyrians,” to show different responses to those crises. This period is often termed “the first dark age,” but that designation is useful in only a few cases. For example, the Egyptians, beset by invasions and a decline in imperial power, turned inward, “hobbled by a government riddled with intrigue, not to mention problems with succession and rivalries that occasionally resulted in two, three, and sometimes even four rulers in different parts of Egypt at the same time.” Having lost nearly half their population, the Greeks rebuilt, while the ancient Israelites took advantage of the power vacuum to dominate the region that forms the present country and beyond. Cline is as interested in continuities as in ruptures. He discounts the idea of a “Dorian invasion” of Greece, for example, to look at survivals from the doomed Mycenaean civilization, including the belief in gods such as Zeus. Cline also explores historical moments seldom mentioned outside the professional literature, such as the coalition of kings that allied against the Assyrian king Shalmaneser—unsuccessfully, as it happens, allowing him to expand his empire. The author writes with an eye to the present and future as well as the past, applying the characteristics of the “winners” among these societies to draw lessons for what may be hard times to come, given war, disease, and, yes, climate change. One lesson: “Be as self-sufficient as possible, but do call on friends for assistance when needed.” Another: “Keep the working class happy.”
A superb work to interest history buffs of every period.
