1077 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric H. Cline (review)

Abstract

The southern rim of the Mediterranean was set ablaze by the Arab Awakening in 2011. Early hopes of a transition to democracy and more accountable government have largely been dashed, and the region continues to be dominated by violence and turbulence with uncertain outcomes. The current conflagration could ultimately remake the map of North Africa and the Middle East; many of the nations and states currently in the Middle East may not be there in the coming decades, due to war, migration, and state collapse. Indeed, this is the ultimate objective of the Islamic State (ISIS), which seeks to establish a caliphate that stretches across current state borders. As ISIS entered Iraq in 2014, its sleek propaganda machine even called the move “Smashing SykesPicot,” referring to the 1916 AngloFrench treaty that established the French and British spheres of influence in the Middle East. It is arguable that the upheaval in North Africa and the Middle East was a long time in coming, considering regional megatrends such as youth bulges, low economic growth, water stress, failure to meet rising expectations, and government mismanagement, along with incessant wars from Iraq to Lebanon. Indeed, fifteen years ago the US intelligence community coined the phrase “the arc of crisis” to explain the longterm trajectory of political and social development in North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. It now seems that that arc of crisis has indeed descended and spread rapidly across the region. But this is not the first time that the broader Middle East has undergone vast and violent change that brought with it the fall of rulers and the disappearance of cultures,