1177 BC — Eric Cline

Cline reconstructs the collapse of the Late Bronze Age — a moment around 1200 BC when multiple civilisations across the Eastern Mediterranean disappeared within a few decades. Rather than identifying a single cause, he argues for a systems failure: drought, migration, internal rebellion, disrupted trade networks, and seismic activity converging simultaneously on interconnected societies too complex to absorb the shock. It is a history that reads uncomfortably like a case study in fragility.