The Road to Armageddon 2026
The Assyrian Empire in the Seventh Century BC
Will be published approx. on 9. October 2026
Book
Hardback
160 pages
978-1-80596-931-0 (ISBN)
Description
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.
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.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Liverpool University Press
Illustrations
12 Illustrations, color; 12 Illustrations, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-80596-931-0 (9781805969310)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Previously a professor at University College London, Karen Radner holds the Alexander von Humboldt Chair of the Ancient History of the Near and Middle East at LMU Munich since 2015. A member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and of the German Archaeological Institute, she was awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize in 2022. Her research focuses on the Assyrian Empire.
Content
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
Bibliography
Index
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
Bibliography
Index