The dominant Anatolian superpower of the Bronze Age, the Hittites fought Egypt to a standstill at Kadesh (c. 1274 BC) and signed history's first known peace treaty; their sudden collapse around 1178 BC is a key marker of the Late Bronze Age collapse.
Collapsed c. 1180 BCE during the Late Bronze Age collapse; the capital Hattusa was sacked and burned, with the Kaskians, Phrygians, and Sea Peoples contributing to the empire's disintegration into smaller Neo-Hittite city-states.
Trevor Bryce's authoritative Oxford political history of the Hittite kingdom, the standard modern successor to Gurney's classic survey.
SBL scholarly survey of Hittite history, society, and religion in their Anatolian and Near Eastern context.