1177 B.C.

1177 B.C. PDF Author: Eric H. Cline
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691168385
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Get Book Here

Book Description
A bold reassessment of what caused the Late Bronze Age collapse In 1177 B.C., marauding groups known only as the "Sea Peoples" invaded Egypt. The pharaoh's army and navy managed to defeat them, but the victory so weakened Egypt that it soon slid into decline, as did most of the surrounding civilizations. After centuries of brilliance, the civilized world of the Bronze Age came to an abrupt and cataclysmic end. Kingdoms fell like dominoes over the course of just a few decades. No more Minoans or Mycenaeans. No more Trojans, Hittites, or Babylonians. The thriving economy and cultures of the late second millennium B.C., which had stretched from Greece to Egypt and Mesopotamia, suddenly ceased to exist, along with writing systems, technology, and monumental architecture. But the Sea Peoples alone could not have caused such widespread breakdown. How did it happen? In this major new account of the causes of this "First Dark Ages," Eric Cline tells the gripping story of how the end was brought about by multiple interconnected failures, ranging from invasion and revolt to earthquakes, drought, and the cutting of international trade routes. Bringing to life the vibrant multicultural world of these great civilizations, he draws a sweeping panorama of the empires and globalized peoples of the Late Bronze Age and shows that it was their very interdependence that hastened their dramatic collapse and ushered in a dark age that lasted centuries. A compelling combination of narrative and the latest scholarship, 1177 B.C. sheds new light on the complex ties that gave rise to, and ultimately destroyed, the flourishing civilizations of the Late Bronze Age—and that set the stage for the emergence of classical Greece.

1177 B.C.

1177 B.C. PDF Author: Eric H. Cline
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691168385
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Get Book Here

Book Description
A bold reassessment of what caused the Late Bronze Age collapse In 1177 B.C., marauding groups known only as the "Sea Peoples" invaded Egypt. The pharaoh's army and navy managed to defeat them, but the victory so weakened Egypt that it soon slid into decline, as did most of the surrounding civilizations. After centuries of brilliance, the civilized world of the Bronze Age came to an abrupt and cataclysmic end. Kingdoms fell like dominoes over the course of just a few decades. No more Minoans or Mycenaeans. No more Trojans, Hittites, or Babylonians. The thriving economy and cultures of the late second millennium B.C., which had stretched from Greece to Egypt and Mesopotamia, suddenly ceased to exist, along with writing systems, technology, and monumental architecture. But the Sea Peoples alone could not have caused such widespread breakdown. How did it happen? In this major new account of the causes of this "First Dark Ages," Eric Cline tells the gripping story of how the end was brought about by multiple interconnected failures, ranging from invasion and revolt to earthquakes, drought, and the cutting of international trade routes. Bringing to life the vibrant multicultural world of these great civilizations, he draws a sweeping panorama of the empires and globalized peoples of the Late Bronze Age and shows that it was their very interdependence that hastened their dramatic collapse and ushered in a dark age that lasted centuries. A compelling combination of narrative and the latest scholarship, 1177 B.C. sheds new light on the complex ties that gave rise to, and ultimately destroyed, the flourishing civilizations of the Late Bronze Age—and that set the stage for the emergence of classical Greece.

Civilized to Death

Civilized to Death PDF Author: Christopher Ryan
Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 1451659113
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Get Book Here

Book Description
The New York Times bestselling coauthor of Sex at Dawn explores the ways in which “progress” has perverted the way we live—how we eat, learn, feel, mate, parent, communicate, work, and die—in this “engaging, extensively documented, well-organized, and thought-provoking” (Booklist) book. Most of us have instinctive evidence the world is ending—balmy December days, face-to-face conversation replaced with heads-to-screens zomboidism, a world at constant war, a political system in disarray. We hear some myths and lies so frequently that they feel like truths: Civilization is humankind’s greatest accomplishment. Progress is undeniable. Count your blessings. You’re lucky to be alive here and now. Well, maybe we are and maybe we aren’t. Civilized to Death counters the idea that progress is inherently good, arguing that the “progress” defining our age is analogous to an advancing disease. Prehistoric life, of course, was not without serious dangers and disadvantages. Many babies died in infancy. A broken bone, infected wound, snakebite, or difficult pregnancy could be life-threatening. But ultimately, Christopher Ryan questions, were these pre-civilized dangers more murderous than modern scourges, such as car accidents, cancers, cardiovascular disease, and a technologically prolonged dying process? Civilized to Death “will make you see our so-called progress in a whole new light” (Book Riot) and adds to the timely conversation that “the way we have been living is no longer sustainable, at least as long as we want to the earth to outlive us” (Psychology Today). Ryan makes the claim that we should start looking backwards to find our way into a better future.

Collapse

Collapse PDF Author: Jared Diamond
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141976969
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 608

Get Book Here

Book Description
From the author of Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive is a visionary study of the mysterious downfall of past civilizations. Now in a revised edition with a new afterword, Jared Diamond's Collapse uncovers the secret behind why some societies flourish, while others founder - and what this means for our future. What happened to the people who made the forlorn long-abandoned statues of Easter Island? What happened to the architects of the crumbling Maya pyramids? Will we go the same way, our skyscrapers one day standing derelict and overgrown like the temples at Angkor Wat? Bringing together new evidence from a startling range of sources and piecing together the myriad influences, from climate to culture, that make societies self-destruct, Jared Diamond's Collapse also shows how - unlike our ancestors - we can benefit from our knowledge of the past and learn to be survivors. 'A grand sweep from a master storyteller of the human race' - Daily Mail 'Riveting, superb, terrifying' - Observer 'Gripping ... the book fulfils its huge ambition, and Diamond is the only man who could have written it' - Economis 'This book shines like all Diamond's work' - Sunday Times

The Collapse of Western Civilization

The Collapse of Western Civilization PDF Author: Naomi Oreskes
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231537956
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 105

Get Book Here

Book Description
The year is 2393, and the world is almost unrecognizable. Clear warnings of climate catastrophe went ignored for decades, leading to soaring temperatures, rising sea levels, widespread drought and—finally—the disaster now known as the Great Collapse of 2093, when the disintegration of the West Antarctica Ice Sheet led to mass migration and a complete reshuffling of the global order. Writing from the Second People's Republic of China on the 300th anniversary of the Great Collapse, a senior scholar presents a gripping and deeply disturbing account of how the children of the Enlightenment—the political and economic elites of the so-called advanced industrial societies—failed to act, and so brought about the collapse of Western civilization. In this haunting, provocative work of science-based fiction, Naomi Oreskes and Eric M. Conway imagine a world devastated by climate change. Dramatizing the science in ways traditional nonfiction cannot, the book reasserts the importance of scientists and the work they do and reveals the self-serving interests of the so called "carbon combustion complex" that have turned the practice of science into political fodder. Based on sound scholarship and yet unafraid to speak boldly, this book provides a welcome moment of clarity amid the cacophony of climate change literature.

The Collapse of Complex Societies

The Collapse of Complex Societies PDF Author: Joseph Tainter
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521386739
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 268

Get Book Here

Book Description
Dr Tainter describes nearly two dozen cases of collapse and reviews more than 2000 years of explanations. He then develops a new and far-reaching theory.

Ancient Mesopotamia

Ancient Mesopotamia PDF Author: A. Leo Oppenheim
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022617767X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 494

Get Book Here

Book Description
"This splendid work of scholarship . . . sums up with economy and power all that the written record so far deciphered has to tell about the ancient and complementary civilizations of Babylon and Assyria."—Edward B. Garside, New York Times Book Review Ancient Mesopotamia—the area now called Iraq—has received less attention than ancient Egypt and other long-extinct and more spectacular civilizations. But numerous small clay tablets buried in the desert soil for thousands of years make it possible for us to know more about the people of ancient Mesopotamia than any other land in the early Near East. Professor Oppenheim, who studied these tablets for more than thirty years, used his intimate knowledge of long-dead languages to put together a distinctively personal picture of the Mesopotamians of some three thousand years ago. Following Oppenheim's death, Erica Reiner used the author's outline to complete the revisions he had begun. "To any serious student of Mesopotamian civilization, this is one of the most valuable books ever written."—Leonard Cottrell, Book Week "Leo Oppenheim has made a bold, brave, pioneering attempt to present a synthesis of the vast mass of philological and archaeological data that have accumulated over the past hundred years in the field of Assyriological research."—Samuel Noah Kramer, Archaeology A. Leo Oppenheim, one of the most distinguished Assyriologists of our time, was editor in charge of the Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute and John A. Wilson Professor of Oriental Studies at the University of Chicago.

The Decline of the West

The Decline of the West PDF Author: Oswald Spengler
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195066340
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 500

Get Book Here

Book Description
Spengler's work describes how we have entered into a centuries-long "world-historical" phase comparable to late antiquity, and his controversial ideas spark debate over the meaning of historiography.

Dirt

Dirt PDF Author: David R. Montgomery
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520933168
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 299

Get Book Here

Book Description
Dirt, soil, call it what you want—it's everywhere we go. It is the root of our existence, supporting our feet, our farms, our cities. This fascinating yet disquieting book finds, however, that we are running out of dirt, and it's no laughing matter. An engaging natural and cultural history of soil that sweeps from ancient civilizations to modern times, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations explores the compelling idea that we are—and have long been—using up Earth's soil. Once bare of protective vegetation and exposed to wind and rain, cultivated soils erode bit by bit, slowly enough to be ignored in a single lifetime but fast enough over centuries to limit the lifespan of civilizations. A rich mix of history, archaeology and geology, Dirt traces the role of soil use and abuse in the history of Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, China, European colonialism, Central America, and the American push westward. We see how soil has shaped us and we have shaped soil—as society after society has risen, prospered, and plowed through a natural endowment of fertile dirt. David R. Montgomery sees in the recent rise of organic and no-till farming the hope for a new agricultural revolution that might help us avoid the fate of previous civilizations.

Death of Civilization

Death of Civilization PDF Author: Nathan Hale
Publisher: Createspace Independent Pub
ISBN: 9781480044333
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 590

Get Book Here

Book Description
October 2012 Revised Edition The world's financial system is collapsing and this crisis is being used to begin the coup in America that will finally end the "American Experiment." Two related groups of prepared citizens have run to their survival retreats, one in southern Ohio, the Compound, and the other in eastern Kentucky, the Farm, with the intention of hiding until they know if the coup is successful, or if everything simply goes out of control. The Compound is commanded by a retired Marine Lieutenant General known by his Seal Team name, Iceman. The Farm is commanded by his older son, a retired Marine Colonel known also by his Seal Team name, Mack. Both groups share the same goal, to survive whatever is about to happen. Over the first week they quietly watch as things begin to deteriorate both in America and around the world. Because the government has terminated the internet and cell phones while actively monitoring all land telephone lines, along with controlling all television signals, their information sources are limited to the CB radio and shortwave radio signals. Nevertheless, these signals are sufficient to allow the real truth to be told. A nuclear war has started in the Middle East and, in America; massive riots have begun in the cities. Then, as they watch everything irrevocably slide out of control, someone, somewhere makes a mistake. In the mid-70's the first space based kinetic energy weapons platform was put into space. This system, along with its sister systems that were put into space by the other major powers, consists of platinum rods with a guidance package and a booster rocket. They are designed to impact the earth's surface with a force roughly equal to that of a forty megaton hydrogen bomb, only without the radiation. Because of the limited amount of time available to respond if these platforms were attacked all of the major powers had made their systems automatic and computer controlled. Whatever happened that caused these systems to fire the result was that in less than an hour over half of Earth's population die's as the kinetic energy weapon systems rain tens of thousands of missiles onto the planet's surface destroying military targets, cities and infrastructure everywhere. With the electrical grid destroyed, along with most major cities, all military bases, and the supporting infrastructure of our civilization, the citizens in the Compound and the Farm now find themselves attempting to help as many survivors as possible. While they have limited supplies available to them, they still reach out to their neighbors with offers of help and the information the neighbors will need to help them to also survive what is coming. As they experience the rapid cooling off of the planet because of the vast amount of debris thrown into the mesosphere, which is preventing the suns energy from reaching the surface, they are also fighting to keep the supplies they have accumulated from being taken by their enemies. Since they know that they are now facing a multi-year winter, loss of those supplies is nothing short of a death sentence. When the coup began, only a few weeks before, the governments new enforcement arm, the Citizens Army for Liberty (CAL), which has nothing to do with citizens (except to discipline them), or liberty, but is an army, was introduced. With their food, military supplies, and bases destroyed along with the cities they had been in, CAL is forced to forage for the food it needs to support its men, regardless of just who they have to kill to accomplish their goal. The citizen survivors are forced to defend themselves against the depredations of CAL while preparing for a "nuclear" winter, a multi-year winter that the world hadn't seen since the start of the last Ice Age!

All Societies Die

All Societies Die PDF Author: Samuel Cohn
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501755919
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 145

Get Book Here

Book Description
In All Societies Die, Samuel Cohn asks us to prepare for the inevitable. Our society is going to die. What are you going to do about it? But he also wants us to know that there's still reason for hope. In an immersive and mesmerizing discussion Cohn considers what makes societies (throughout history) collapse. All Societies Die points us to the historical examples of the Byzantine empire, the collapse of Somalia, the rise of Middle Eastern terrorism, the rise of drug cartels in Latin America and the French Revolution to explain how societal decline has common features and themes. Cohn takes us on an easily digestible journey through history. While he unveils the past, his message to us about the present is searing. Through his assessment of past—and current—societies, Cohn offers us a new way of looking at societal growth and decline. With a broad panorama of bloody stories, unexpected historical riches, crime waves, corruption, and disasters, he shows us that although our society will, inevitably, die at some point, there's still a lot we can do to make it better and live a little longer. His quirky and inventive approach to an "end-of-the-world" scenario should be a warning. We're not there yet. Cohn concludes with a strategy of preserving and rebuilding so that we don't have to give a eulogy anytime soon.