Started: Oct. 2
Finished: Oct. 11
Notes: The author's proposed subject matter here is that early civilization collapsed in the 12th Century B.C. and this created a dark age that lasted at least a few hundreds years until Greek civilization rose in a form of renaissance, followed up by Carthage, Rome, etc. The author also seems to suggest this time in history has a lot of co-relations with our modern world. I find all this fascinating. I guess that's why I'm reading the book, and probably why I minored in ancient history in college.
Mini review: The author does a fine job of outlining multiple possible causes for a general collapse of Bronze Age civilization about 1177 B.C., but he concludes there is no real way of knowing (at least not yet) what caused this collapse, though he tends towards a mixture of reasons such as famine, internal strife, wars, mass population shifts, etc. He also brings up complexity theory and does a brief comparison of the modern world to that of the Bronze Age, and I have to admit there are more things familiar than I would have thought.
This sounds interesting. I'll have to look for a copy. Thanks for the review.
ReplyDeleteThe writing style is pretty smooth, too, not overly scholarly. Much of the information was already familiar to me, but I had never thought of it in a broader sense, as this author does.
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