New Resilient Futures Podcast Episode: Expect the Unexpected


Expect the Unexpected: Resilience and Life Advice from the Late Bronze Age

In this month’s new episode of the Resilient Futures Podcast, anthropologist and historian Dr. Eric Cline and USACE research social scientist Dr. Ben Trump come together with hosts Alysha and Todd to explore large-scale regional destabilization and collapse in the Late Bronze Age.

Around 1200 B.C., an interconnected network of eight large, thriving civilizations collapsed in a matter of decades. Dr.s Cline and Trump wanted to explore how this collapse came about, whether the civilizations could have predicted or prevented it, and what resilience strategies some of these civilizations exhibited.

“They went down. There’s no reason to suspect that we won’t as well… It would be absolutely hubristic to think that we would be the first ones that are immune from that.”

We promise it’s not all that ominous. Listen to learn more about what these researchers describe as a “poly-crisis,” and how we can learn from it today to be more resilient to environmental, economic and social disturbances, and how recovery from collapse takes place.

Learn more about the podcast, available on most major listening platforms, here.

Links:

Dr. Eric Cline, Professor of Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies and of Anthropology; Director of the GWU Capitol Archaeological Institute

Dr. Ben Trump, Research Social Scientist, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Check out the paper.

Check out Dr. Cline’s book, 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed.

Preorder Dr. Cline’s upcoming sequel, After 1177 B.C.: The Survival of Civilizations.

You can also preorder the graphic novel version of 1177 B.C., coming soon.

Ben’s Haiku:

   Complexity’s cost.
   Dependency’s brief fragility.
   Resilience is key.

Eric’s Haiku(s):

   Bronze realms crumble,
   empires fade in twilight’s grasp,
   ages mourn their fall.

   Civilizations wane,
   bronze echoes in silent ruins,
   time’s shadow devours.    

   Bronze echoes shatter,
   civilizations entwine,
   silent ruins weep.