1177 B.C.

The experience of reading 1177 is an experience as parched and dusty as an Assyrian desert. The reader must stumble through a structure as jumbled as an archaeological ruin. Cline's writing is juvenile and poorly organized. Every attempt at metaphor is either misguided or cliched. He is lucky that he chose an interesting, underexplored topic--at least in the realm of popular history--because this is a sorry effort that seems to be vastly overrated by his peers and critics.