Understanding Collapse: Ancient History and Modern Myths

Understanding Collapse explores the collapse of ancient civilisations, such as the Roman Empire, the Maya, and Easter Island. In this lively survey, Guy D. Middleton critically examines our ideas about collapse - how we explain it and how we have constructed potentially misleading myths around collapses - showing how and why collapse of societies was a much more complex phenomenon than is often admitted. Rather than positing a single explanatory model of collapse - economic, social, or environmental - Middleton gives full consideration to the overlooked resilience in communities of ancient peoples and the choices that they made. He offers a fresh interpretation of collapse that will be accessible to both students and scholars. The book is an engaging, introductory-level survey of collapse in the archaeology/history literature, which will be ideal for use in courses on the collapse of civilizations, sustainability, and climate change. It includes up-to-date case studies of famous and less well-known examples of collapses, and is illustrated with 25 black and white illustrations, 3 line drawings, 16 tables and 18 maps.

About the Author

Guy D. Middleton studied Ancient History and Archaeology at Newcastle University, where he won the Shipley Prize. For his PhD at the University of Durham he studied the collapse of Mycenaean states around 1200 BC. His works on collapse include: 'Nothing Lasts Forever: Environmental Discourses on the Collapse of Past Societies' (Journal of Archaeological Research, 2012) and The Collapse of Palatial Society in Late Bronze Age Greece and the Postpalatial Period (2010). He also has a BA in Humanities and English Language and an MEd in Applied Linguistics and has worked extensively with international students. As well as teaching at universities in the UK, he has lived and worked in Greece, Korea, and for some years at the University of Tokyo, Japan. He is now a Visiting Fellow in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at Newcastle University.