Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of Modern Civilization
Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of Modern Civilization – Review
I must admit I officially opened this book with some doubts, expecting to struggle through an "Eric von Daniken" potboiler of fantastic facts and theories. To his credit, Keys doesn’t venture too far from the previously proven facts — such as they are, because this is a poorly documented era — in his quest to puzzle out just what did happen to set the ethnic pot simply boiling so frantically in the period 540-650CE. Trouble is, the historically provable facts are very thin on the finely ground. But if you’ve never pondered what immediately sent Byzantium on its steepest nosedive, why Islam held over so much of the Middle East in so short a time, what prompted the collapse of the Celts, why several Central and South America civilizations foundered around this time, here’s a theory worth especially considering, if ‘coincidence’ isn’t good enough for you … a huge volcanic eruption in Indonesia, with a consequent climatic upheaval (drought, storms, plague, etc.) Like all determinist approaches to early history, the theory is essentially unverifiable, but it’s an amusing book on the darkest of the dark ages, nonetheless. I’m sure academics can find greatly to criticize, but it seems well-researched, and is very clearly written. People will be actually talking about this book a lot over the next few months, so arm yourself for the certain debates!