TONY BURKE reviews new releases from Cheikh Lo, Mishra & Deepa Shakthi, N’Faly Kouyate
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Keep the working class happy
ALEX HALL is intrigued by the lessons drawn by an eminent scholar of the Bronze Age collapse of civilisation
SURVIVORS: Phoenician glass necklace from Olbia, 4th century BC
[Giovanni Dall'Orto/CC] 
Gin Lane by William Hogarth is a critique of 18th-century London’s growing funeral trade, posits DAN O’BRIEN
ANDY HEDGECOCK sees his scepticism lessened by a story is more complex and far-reaching than is initially apparent
MARK TURNER holds on tight for a mesmerising display of Neath-born ragtime virtuosity
ALAN MORRISON introduces a UK poet whose despised daytime occupation provides the subject for his writing
MARK TURNER wallows in the virtuosity of Swansea Jazz Festival openers, Simon Spillett and Pete Long
After 1177 BC The Survival of Civilizations
Eric H Cline
Princeton, £28
IN 1177 BC civilisation as we know it crumbled. In what is known as the Late Bronze Age collapse, the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians and Cypriots all suffered disaster and lay in ruins.
Trade stopped, and written records disappear. A series of catastrophes ensued which included the destruction of cities, mass migration and climate change. Ultimately the Minoans and the Hittites vanished.
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