Del i serien Schweich Lectures on Biblical Archaeology

Road to Armageddon

Nyhet

The Assyrian Empire in the Seventh Century BC

Inbunden, Engelska, 2026

AvKaren Radner

2 069 kr

Kommande

The Road to Armageddon: The Assyrian Empire in the Seventh Century BC offers a new interpretation of how the first Mesopotamian empire ended. Rather than narrating sudden collapse or gradual decline, it analyses the structural transformation that occurred when imperial coordination thinned while administrative systems continued to function. Focusing on the seventh century BC, the book traces how the Assyrian Empire intensified governance, infrastructure, and imperial ideology at the height of its power. Monumental building at Nineveh, theological centralisation at Assur, covenantal politics, and large-scale infrastructural investment produced unprecedented levels of imperial saturation and optimisation. Drawing on royal inscriptions, palace reliefs, archival records, and environmental data, the study integrates political history with climate history and systems analysis. It examines the interaction of aridity, geomagnetic instability, seismic volatility, and biological innovation with imperial structures across Mesopotamia and the ancient Middle East. The fall of Nineveh in 612 BC is interpreted not as a sudden rupture but as the culmination of a longer process of structural decoupling. The book proposes Armageddon as a historical category describing the condition in which durability outlasts adaptability, offering a model for understanding how complex empires reach irreversible thresholds.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2026-10-09
Mått156 x 234 x undefined mm
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
SerieSchweich Lectures on Biblical Archaeology
Antal sidor160
FörlagLiverpool University Press
ISBN9781805969310

Tillhör följande kategorier

List of Figures Introducing the Seventh Century BC 1.1. “Armageddon” as a Historical Problem 1.2. Assyria from Regional Power to Total Empire: Scale, Administration, and the Problem of Maintenance 1.3. Environmental Anomalies and the Conditions of Imperial Stress 1.4 This Book’s Scope and Method A Century of Extremes 2.1. Sennacherib: Architect of Heaven and Earth 2.2. Esarhaddon: Institutional Consolidation and Contractual Kingship 2.3. Ashurbanipal and the First Crack in the Imperial System 2.4. From Fissure to Fault Line: The Brother War (652–648 BC) A Century of Experimentation 3.1. Experimentation in Empire Building and Infrastructure 3.2. Building Imperial Infrastructure: Sennacherib’s Nineveh 3.3. Urartu: Testing the Limits of Assyrian Experimentation 3.4. Empire Building through Statecraft: Ashurbanipal’s New Political–Economic Logic 3.5. Empire Building through Infrastructure: Ashurbanipal’s Political–Material Commitments 3.6. Experimenting without a Safety Net Exposure and the Limits of Imperial Coordination 4.1. Mismatched Records: Writing the End of Empire 4.2. From Magnates to Courtiers: Reconfiguring Power between Crown, Court, and Provinces 4.3. Boy Kings and the Opacity of Authority 4.4. The Persistence of Routine under Conditions of Exposure 4.5. Peripheral Shock and the Afterlife of Authority Armageddon as a Structural Condition BibliographyIndex