The Iron Age: A History from Beginning to End

The Stone Age saw the first human success in making tools and weapons. During the Bronze Age, these items were improved and refined by blending copper and tin to create an alloy called bronze. However, since copper and tin are rarely found together, the making of bronze required reliable trade routes between distant places. When these routes collapsed around 1200 BCE, people began to look for an alternative material from which to make durable tools and weapons.

The solution was steel smelted from iron ore, which was abundant and found in many locations. Suddenly, it was possible to create effective tools and weapons without being reliant on imports, paving the way for the rise of some of the first large-scale armies and even to the emergence of the first true empires. This book delves into the Iron Age, exploring its origins, its rapid dissemination, and the profound transformations it brought to human societies. This is the story of how iron reshaped the ancient world.