Reddit Reddit reviews The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000 (The Penguin History of Europe)

We found 14 Reddit comments about The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000 (The Penguin History of Europe). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000 (The Penguin History of Europe)
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14 Reddit comments about The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000 (The Penguin History of Europe):

u/jimmythemini · 21 pointsr/AskHistorians

Based on my reading of The Inheritance of Rome by Chris Wickham, the short answer is that in the early medieval period, there wasn't a particularly strong conception in the lands of the Western Empire between a 'Roman' and 'post-Roman' era. Obviously this was even less of the case in the Eastern Empire, but I assume OP is mainly asking about the West.

In part, this is because the Western Empire fizzled out quite slowly and in an amorphous fashion, and wasn't replaced by what we might call 'coherent' nation states. Mediterranean trade - the lifeblood of the Empire - also declined terminally but very slowly. There was no set date for the Fall of the Empire as we conceive now - the Sack of Rome in 410 would most likely have been received with the same sense of shock that 9/11 was felt throughout the Western world. But at no point was it conceived as marking the end of the Roman world as 'Rome' at this point was centered in the East, and within the Italian peninsula the city of Rome had long been in decline.

Above all, 'Europeans' would also have conceived of themselves as members of Christendom, from which we can draw a pretty straight line from Constantine. So its for this reason that Charlemagne conceived of his Empire as a continuation of Rome, and not some sort of revival.

u/adlerchen · 10 pointsr/AskHistorians

Of course. The Carolingian kingdom even used roman law, and as a direct result so did Charlemagne's 3 successor states and thus so did medieval France and the Holy Roman Empire.

And it's not like there wasn't a roman empire during the medieval period. While western Rome collapsed in the 5th century, eastern Rome did not, and the indigenous inhabitants of what we now in English call the Byzantine Empire considered themselves Romans and were considered as such by their contemporaries. When Odoacer took the crown of Rome he himself didn't claim the title of imperitor, he sent the crown to the eastern Emperor as he felt it was his rightful property. And furthermore hundreds of years after that both the Arabs and Turks called eastern Rome "Rum" and the inhabitants of the eastern Roman empire "Romans".

  • Wickham 2009 - The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000.
  • Gabriele 2011 - An Empire of Memory: The Legend of Charlemagne, the Franks, and Jerusalem before the First Crusade.
u/alfonsoelsabio · 9 pointsr/Christianity

Here are a few specifically about the so-called Dark Ages:

The Inheritance of Rome

Barbarians to Angels

The World of Late Antiquity

u/100002152 · 6 pointsr/AskHistorians

One of the best books I've read on the history of the late (Western) Roman Empire was Peter Heather's The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians. He provides a great deal of the latest research on the origins and movements of the different "barbarian" tribes and their relationships with the Roman Empire, including the Visigoths. The book is excellently written and accessible to someone (like myself when I first read it) who is new to the topic.

For more information on the Visigoths after the official end of the Western Roman Empire in 476 CE, Chris Wickham's The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000 provides a very detailed chapter on the Iberian peninsula under the Visigothic kingdom.

If you do decide to check these books out, I'd recommend reading Heather first for both the obvious reason of chronology and because Wickham is a much more daunting read.

u/Integralds · 3 pointsr/AskSocialScience

Here is some stuff I recommended recently, which itself links back to stuff I recommended less recently.

> I am most interested in is medieval european economics so anything specific to that time period/area would be even better.

Oh, that's different and interesting.

A good general history of early medieval Europe is Wickham, The Inheritance of Rome, 400 to 1000. Amazon link. That might be a little early for you, but he has a great chapter on economics and society therein.

This book picks up where Wickham leaves off and apparently focuses solely on social/economic affairs, but I have not personally reviewed it so I can't vouch for its quality.

u/dokh · 3 pointsr/AskHistorians

That thread also recommends this book, which has a great view of the process by which the Western Roman Empire withered away even as the structures of local governance it had established remained mostly intact.

u/Cyradis · 2 pointsr/books

It's on Gutenberg, as it's out of copyright. Volume 1 is here.

It's extraordinarily long--there are actually 6 volumes. The copy you're looking at on Amazon must be heavily abridged. This is a classic, but it also has some ideas that have since fallen out of favor with historians. (Still worth reading if you have the time.)

As an early medievalist, I would argue that Rome doesn't so much of collapse/disappear as fragment heavily, and then the fragments change into something else.) I'd suggest reading Chris Wickham's "Inheritance of Rome" or Julia Smith's "Europe After Rome: A New Cultural History." This is just to give you an alternate perspective.

The last two I don't think are available as ebooks...

u/ciarogeile · 2 pointsr/europe

I'm currently finishing this: "Brian Boru and the Battle of Clontark, by Seán Duffy. It's excellent.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18181699-brian-boru-and-the-battle-of-clontarf

This one, "Diarmait King of Leinster", by Nicholas Furlong, is also fairly interesting and covers a slightly later period:
https://www.amazon.com/Diarmait-King-Leinster-Nicholas-Furlong/dp/1856355055

There is a chapter in "The Inheritance of Rome", by Chris Wickham, which also deals well, albeit briefly with this period in Ireland and is quite nice in how it compares Ireland to other polities.
https://www.amazon.com/Inheritance-Rome-Illuminating-400-1000-Penguin/dp/0143117424

u/BookQueen13 · 2 pointsr/AskHistorians

You might like The Inheritance of Rome for more information about that. It was one of my textbooks for my early middle ages course. The author makes some really good points about the collapse, or rather "unwinding", of the Western Roman Empire and the deteriorating relationship between East and West. If I remember correctly, there were some chapters solely on the Byzantine Empire as well.

u/grashnak · 1 pointr/AskHistorians

If you're looking for a broad survey book of the time period 400-1000, I would recommend Chris Wickham's The Inheritance of Rome (2009)

Great book. Goes a little beyond (a lot beyond) Italy to basically talk about every part of the Roman Empire, plus some stuff in Ireland and Scandinavia for comparative purposes, but really gives you a good broad sense of everything going on in the post-Roman world.

u/TacticusPrime · 1 pointr/MapPorn

Eh, no, not many. If you want a good overview of the end of the Roman system and the transition to various "feudal" ones I would suggest this book.

u/CMStephens · 1 pointr/history

This book: The Inheritance of Rome is a rather good one on the time period.

But yeah, as said, there's 1100 years of history. Man didn't have to 'rediscover reason' - that's way too simplistic.

u/Its_all_good_in_DC · 1 pointr/MapPorn

My favorite book on the subject is The Inheritance of Rome by Chris Wickham. The book is very detailed and it was thoroughly eye-opening to read.

u/admorobo · 1 pointr/suggestmeabook

The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating The Dark Ages 400-1000 covers The Carolingian Dynasty as well as other ruling powers throughout the time period.