1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed is a 2014 non-fiction book about the Late Bronze Age collapse by American archaeologist Eric H. Cline. It was published by Princeton University Press. An updated edition was published in 2021.
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 |
930.1'56-dc23 | |
LC Class | GN778.25.C55 2014 https://lccn.loc.gov/2013032059 |
Website | Publisher - 1177 B.C |
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]
The book has won the following awards:[2]