A review by karp76
1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric H. Cline, Barry S. Strauss

3.0

“In a complex system such as our world today, this is all it might take for the overall system to become destabilized, leading to a collapse.” The title promises a bold and valiant premise and delivers neither. This reads like a graduate paper or nothing more than an academic review. Again, a title as bold and promising as this, beckons readers, all readers to come, let me whisper the interesting and fascinating to you. The common reader will be put off at best and completely lost at worst. The text is dry and academic and affords that you must have at least a sturdy survey of LBA Mediterranean and Levant culture. Is not all a waste. The last 30, 40 pages moves away from the academic survey into Cline's own thoughts and feelings, the narrative lightening and changing to his tone, gathering and dissecting the last 150 odd pages into a more palatable digestion, but still it does not deliver on its promised title. This is one for the student, not the reader.