End-of-Bronze Age collapse as a simile to today?

Update: in Andrew Zolnai Private Blog, a mid-2026 post on  Climate Change and the Old Testament here.

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Almost nine years ago at a Long Now (home page) talk in San Francisco - introduced by none other than Stewart Brand (Wikipedia) of Whole Earth Catalog fame - Eric Cline, an Antiquities historian at Washington University, proposed this: the 3200-1200 BC Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean and Middle East - from Sardania to the Tigris-Euphrates - was an early microcosm of interconnected societies that gradually expanded and flourished, until their relatively sudden collapse: paraphrasing "13c. BC was very different from 11c. 'dark ages'"; only Egyptian kingdoms survived and at a much reduced state. What caused this sudden collapse, and what lessons can be learned from it for today?

Re-posted under "fair use" for public education, relating to the blog's regional focus, full screen.

Looking for an abstract? Here's one from PBS Wisconsin (University Place):

"Eric Cline, Professor of Classics and Anthropology at George Washington University, discusses the factors that caused the Bronze Age to come to an end. Cline focuses on events of 1177 BC including earthquakes, drought, famine and rebellions and discusses their similarity to events occurring today."