This book presents a comprehensive history of the Late Bronze Age kingdomof the Hittites, and the role it played within the context of the ancient NearEastern world. From their capital, Hattusa, in central Anatolia, the Hittitekings ruled a vast network of subject territories and vassal states reachingfrom the Aegean coast of Anatolia through Syria to the river Euphrates. In thefourteenth century BC the Hittites became the supreme political and militarypower in the Near East. How did they achieve their supremacy? How successfulwere they in maintaining it? What brought about their collapse anddisappearance? In seeking to answer these questions, the book begins with anaccount of the Hittites predecessors in Anatolia, particularly in the earlycenturies of the second millennium, traces the rise and development of theHittite kingdom over a period of some five hundred years, and ends with theevents which followed in the wake of the kingdoms collapse. Translations fromthe original texts are a particular feature of the book; thus on many issues theHittites and their contemporaries are allowed to speak to the modern reader forthemselves.