The Hittites in the Late Bronze Age became the mightiest military power in the Ancient Near East. Yet their empire was always vulnerable to destruction by enemy forces; their Anatolian homeland occupied a remote region, with no navigable rivers; and they were cut off from the sea. Perhaps most seriously, they suffered chronic underpopulation and sometimes devastating plague. How, then, can the rise and triumph of this ancient imperium be explained, against seemingly insuperable odds?

In his lively treatment of one of antiquity's most mysterious civilizations, whose history disappeared from the records more than 3,000 years ago, Trevor Bryce sheds fresh light on Hittite warrior as well as religious and political culture and offers new solutions to many unsolved questions.

Revealing them to have been masters of chariot warfare, who almost inflicted disastrous defeat on Rameses II at the Battle of Kadesh (1274 BCE), he shows the Hittites also to have been devout worshippers of a pantheon of storm-gods and masters of a new diplomatic system which bolstered their authority for centuries.