"1177 B.C. The Year Civilization Collapsed" by Eric H.Cline

"The economy of the Greece is in shambles. Internal rebellions have engulfed Libya, Syria and Egypt, with outsiders and foreign warriors fanning the flames. Turkey fears it will became involved, as does Israel. Jordan is crowded with refugees. Iran is bellicose and threatening, while Iraq is in turmoil."

Sounds familiar? Just as I expected and always used to say, there is nothing new under the sun, everything always happens in circles and what you just read is not a description of current political situation but rather a description of something that already happened long time ago, in fact around 1177 B.C. in the area we call Mediterranean - it was the end of Bronze Age and kingdoms were back than known under different names but they were in the very same spots we know today. Author Eric H. Cline explains in very interesting way all the known details and archeological discoveries about that times and how it came that all those kingdoms (that depended upon a certain natural resources from Middle East - it was Copper back than) eventually all fell down like pieces of Domino one after the other. It was catastrophe of huge proportions and the end of civilization back than, but new empires and new civilizations came after them.

One difficult thing for all the historians and archeologists researching this period is that countries and kingdoms were known under different names back than so with few exceptions (Egypt for example) most of these old names mean nothing to us today - the Hittites, the Mycenaeans, the Canaanites, the Cypriots - are known only from ancient documents and letters, others we can only guess. What they all have in common is certain diplomatic language (kings all wrote to each other as "dear brother" expecting support in wars, gifts, trophies and ships full of slaves), market connections where they all imported and exported products (vines, perfumes, swords, clothes, etc) and they all fell one after another when certain enemy fell on them - we know this enemy only by descriptions as "sea people" who burned, pillaged and destroyed city after city. Even mighty Egypt who fought back and pushed them back, never completely recovered from their attacks. What I found fascinating is how these ancient kingdoms behaved in exactly the same way our governments and politicians behave today - they used polite diplomacy first, then brutal force when necessary, even used embargo on certain kingdoms or islands who stepped out of line. Most of things in this book happened in twelve century B.C. and archeologists found the story in excavations of cities long burned and destroyed - we can only tell these places were completely erased and it was not earthquake but enemy who killed citizens and burned the palaces, but who did it, nobody can tell exactly. One after the other, kingdoms of Bronze age fell apart and it was the end of the world as Mediterraneans knew back than. We think the world is connected today but than again, so it was in twelve century B.C. with Middle East being the main resource of Copper and Tin  necessary for making Bronze weapons. It makes you wonder how much history repeats itself, our own times simply reflecting something that had happened already.