Oh I wanted to like this book more! It's a thoughtful and thorough treatment about the end of a group of interconnected Bronze Age societies. It's a region I'm interested in, and a time I'm interested in, and after reading some other accessible archaeology like Charles Mann's 1491 or Diamond's Collapse I was hopeful.

Unfortunately the narrative here is a bit dry. I was hoping for an accessible, entertaining narrative. But instead it's more a careful academic treatment of what we know about various Bronze Age civilizations from the archaeological record. I admire the accuracy and breadth of the work that he's summarized, but I'm lazy and it was hard for me to keep my attention to it.

The last third of the book brings all the collected facts together to a sort of theory about the Bronze Age collapse. Unfortunately the conclusion isn't very satisfying: "it was a collection of things and we're not really sure." Which may well be correct, and certainly responsible academia.

To me the most interesting part of the book was the documentation of the interconnectedness of the various societies, the trade networks and correspondence between different rulers, etc. At the end of the book he talks a bit about complex systems and catastrophe theory, about how interconnected societies can all collapse swiftly together in ways we don't fully understand. I love that theme in science and wish there were more about it. Given the limited historical record though it may be hard to come to any certainty.