I'm John Bachelor with Professor Eric Klein. The new book is a sequel. The first book I recommend. It's updated now.

1177 BC, the year civilization collapsed. The second book, the sequel, just published after 1177 BC,

The Survival of Civilizations, like a really good melodrama.

It gives us a moment at the end that if we change our ways, we can get out of this trouble.

So we come to, how do we get out of this trouble?

I'm going to lead with the survivors who were sophisticated, the Phoenicians and the Cypriots.

Now, the Cypriots, I'm going to set aside for a moment because they had a wonderful island,

but the Phoenicians didn't have anything like an island.

They were vulnerable to all of the invasion routes of the Levant.

They were also shipboard.

In other words, great risk all the time in the Mediterranean.

But they were anti-fragile. What does that mean again, Professor? You mentioned it before.

Right. So anti-fragile borrowed from Nassim Nicholas Talib, meaning that they're flourished in the

time of chaos. They take advantage of the chaotic situation and expand out and take over. They are opportunists,

as I think you've said. And that's exactly what they do here. And in fact, in going out into the

Mediterranean and getting new sources of raw materials, like going all the way to Spain for silver, as it looks

like. They are actually able to withstand the Neo-Assyrians by literally buying them off.

They are paying tribute each year to Shamanesu the Third and others, and as a result, are not attacked and destroyed like some of the other cities.

So they managed to use their, I would say, the advantage they have and access to the Mediterranean to flourish

and even withstand the assaults by the Assyrians. And the Cypriots manage, but they have an island fortress.

Do they feel vulnerable to invasion by the Assyrians?

I don't recall that the Assyrians were shipworn.

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