The Ages in Alignment series argues for a complete reconstruction of ancient chronology. The histories of the Near Eastern civilizations are now believed to have commenced around 3300 BC, about 2,000 years before those of China and the New World. Yet Ages in Alignment demonstrates that the Near Eastern cultures had no 2,000-year head start. All the ancient civilizations arose simultaneously around 1100 BC, in the wake of a terrible natural catastrophe recalled in legend as the Flood or Deluge. The four volumes of Ages in Alignment reconstruct the histories of the Near Eastern cultures, from the rise of the first monarchies, coincidentally around 1100 BC, until the conquest of Alexander.