Good evening. This is John Bachelor.

Tonight's show turns on Eric Klein's genius to look at civilizations,

six or seven civilizations that at around the 12th century BC fell apart. Why some

fell apart faster than others, why some recovered faster than others, is the inquiry. This is the

Mediterranean Basin, the civilizations that Eric looks at, Assyria, Babylonia, Canaan, northern Canaan,

Canaan, central Canaan, that's Tyre,

the Phoenicians, Egypt, the Hittites, the Neohittites, and mainland Greece.

Egypt fell apart very fast, whereas something that was better led, Canaan, for example, did not. Leadership might be the key.

There are also natural disasters, earthquakes, droughts, and there are also

wars. All of that adds up to each civilization is tested.

Again and again though, it comes back to leadership.

If you have the resources, without the resources, drought ticks everybody down. However with leadership

you come back faster. I don't mean the leadership that was there, leadership that

you reconstitute yourself with. That is one lesson from Eric's very careful telling after 1177 BC.

The original book several years years ago, was Civilization Ending at 1177,

co-terminus with a series of earthquakes.

What happened then is the revelation. These seven or eight, six, seven or eight empires,

civilizations traded with each other, globalized.

We begin with the story of a ship sunk and recovered at the bottom of the med that was carrying

items from all different parts of the Eastern Mediterranean Basin because of trade.

It had empires contributing and And then when one breaks down, it might not be determinative, but several in the trade route.

That leads to a cascade.

...