The End of The Bronze Age

Book Review

Reviews by "Old Duffer"

Robert Drews for Princeton

The answer to what ended the Bronze Age is not (it appears) the arrival of iron weaponry which was argues Drews a slow matter, and what it further was not was the arrival of The Sea Peoples. Drews describes how the theories arose to fit a period in which a large number of cities on or within striking distance of the eastern Mediterranean littoral were destroyed after being thoroughly plundered. Apparently it was not an invasion of proto-Vikings, or drought, or earthworks or a number of other theories describing and despatched by Drews. Nope he reckons that what did for the powers of the time was that the mercenary infantry serving in the chariot-armies tumbled to the fact that they could beat chariot armies. Since such footmen are massively cheaper than maintaining chariots they permitted large armies to be fielded which overran the chariot forces. To defend this theory Drews mounts a very interesting set of descriptions of what Late Bronze Age warfare was like, and the same for Early Iron Age. En route he provides a lot of information of particular value to gamers. I particularly enjoyed his theorising on How Chariots Fought (was it a battle taxi, a charging weapon with lancers, or an archery platform), which produces a most satisfactory answer. A very good accessible book, but I wonder how Champs de Bataille and DBA match up to his approach. One can certainly see the appeal of this period.

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