Whereas most scholastic works dealing with history and archaeology deal with specific people, in specific places, and specific times in order to understand the specific things those people do, Eric Cline’s “1177 B.C.” deals with over 500 years and numerous peoples and places in an attempt to understand what happened to cause the world’s first real “dark ages,” at the end of the Bronze Age.
Cline obviously knows his material, has done the necessary scholarly research, and writes on a level that non-specialists can understand. This is especially impressive considering the scope and breadth of material he covers in this short work. Cline simply makes the ancient world come alive for those of us who know little to nothing about the worlds of which he speaks.
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