Get Hold Of Justinians Flea: The First Great Plague And The End Of The Roman Empire Put Together By William Rosen Released As Readable Copy

Empire and the Birth of Europe

It took me a while to get into the rhythm of Mr Rosens writing, but once I did I couldnt put this book down.
I was fascinated by the building of the Hagia Sophia, interested in the presentation of the life, times and achievements of the emperor Justinian during theth century and engrossed by the possible impact of the flea on the building of empires.


In this book, Mr Rosen provides a number of interpretations which can and are debated, People may argue about the role of Justinian, disagree about the relevance of the detail about the Hagia Sophia and prefer different theories about the birthplace of the bubonic plague.
Some theories are contentious, and it is not always clear why certain aspects of the discussion are given a particular focus, However, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts and for me the book was well worth reading, Mr Rosen provides plenty of notes for a reader who is seeking more information or who is trying to understand the conclusions Mr Rosen draws.


While it is both true and clever to state that: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, I can understand why some readers find this book dissatisfying.
The book is ambitious and may, as others have suggested, have benefitted from more ruthless editing, However, that depends on who Mr Rosen saw as his primary audience, This reader enjoyed the perambulations, If you are interested in this period of history, the life of Justinian, the growth and decline of empires and the relationship between man, rats, fleas and bacteria you may wish to read this book.

I was very impressed with this book, Focused exclusively on the reign of Justinian the Great, the author provides an indepth look at the Byzantine empire from the loss of its western provinces to the beginning of the rise of Islam.
Even more remarkable was the extensive discussion of the plague that devastated the Mediterranean area for approximatelyyears which began during Justinians early reign.
The author provides several chapters of bacteria discussion, epedemiology, human migration, and human immun system discussion on how the plaque had such a high mortality rate.
This book is a mix of history and medical treatise which is very impressive to me, Additionally the author adds a

bonus with a discussion of the other two empires of the time, . . the Sassanian and Han with the Sassanian wars and the Silk Road from China, Later the author also provides information on the rise of the Franks from the Merovingians, I would recommend anyone reading this book to be familiar with the Silk Road, the overall history of the Byzantine/Roman empires, and the Sassanian empires.
A great read!
Interesting but ultimately disappointing history of the Roman Empire during Emperor Justinian's reign in theth century, I was drawn to this book because I really knew little about the pre medieval political map of the Empire except that it had moved its focus and capitol east to Asia Minor.
It did fill in some of the blank areas although I did get lost in the names of all the different non Roman groups, places and cities and the religious schools of thought which were the source of conflict and political unrest in Justinian's domain.


My problem with the book was what I felt was a meandering away from the main premise which was that the outbreaks of plague weakened both the western and eastern empires so much that it enabled the subsequent conquest of the southern Mediterranean, basically today's middle east, by the armies of Islam.
The author spends a lot of time arguing and explaining early church doctrinal differences his own bias clearly in evidence by his overuse of hyperbole in the first half of the book.
Similarly he goes into great scientific detail in describing the evolution and genesis of the epidemiology of the plague which was fascinating, even pinpointing the time and place of the initial outbreak but then only painting broad strokes on breakouts and timelines over the nextyears.


I could not help but compare his history to Geraldine Brooks' treatment of the same subject almost ten centuries later in "Years of Wonder".
Admittedly the latter covers a much smaller geographic space and time, But it seemed to me "Justinian's Flea" spent to much time on prologue and afterward and not enough time on the premise,

So, wow, I hadn't realized that I knew pretty much nothing about the Roman empire, I wasn't expecting cavalry, for example,



A more appropriate title would have been The Final Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, It was an interesting stroll through the demise of the Roman empire and the creation of medievalism and European nationalism, Educational and fun, because Rosen shares his digressions and random bits he picked up, There is a really good section on the Persian Empire, But plague, not so much, Some good stuff on the Y, pestis bacterium, and a good survey of contemporary accounts of the symptoms and death toll, but way too much about the rats,

Strongly recommended as a popular history of theth century, especially if you like the warfare as opposed to war which involves regular people, warfare is the genenerals, strategies, and weapons in my mind and politics.
Rather more than I needed about Christian schisms and heresies,

Library copy You might think a book titled "Justinian's Flea: The First Great Plague and the End of the Roman Empire" would be about.
. . well, plague. That's why I read it, because I'm interested in microbiology and historical epidemic nonfiction, Sadly, plague doesn't even make an appearance in the book untilpages into the book, The first half of the book is a broad, sweeping account of several hundred years of European history, Which is fine, if the book had been marketed as a European History book, but the cover/title/synopsis all say plague, plague, plague.
. . and it's actually a minor part of the book,

Even when the author does finally get to the topic of disease, he spends tons of time giving a broad, sweeping account again of microbiology in general.
While I enjoyed this significantly more than the first half of the book, it still wasn't why I was reading the thing in the first place.


Justinian's Flea is severely lacking in focus, It's so well, broad, and sweeping, and the author tries way too hard to cram more into the book than thepages allow, The result is a skipping, stuttering, and frequently offtopic narrative that is a chore to read, There is a lot of interesting tidbits scattered throughout the book, but overall I was quite disappointed by it, This could have been so much more,

The title of Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire and the Birth of Europe promises so much the last great Roman Emperor or first Byzantine Emperor, if you prefer, the Bubonic Plague, how the plague helped create the series of nationstates that have made up Europe for centuries.
Throw in the Silk Road and how the Europe was able to get its own silk worms, Justinian's multifaceted wife Theodora, Belisarius and a discussion of how the Bubonic plague may have paved the way for Islam by weakening a resurgent Roman Empire under Justinian and you should have an amazing book one that fills a void in most history books the void left where "ancient" history ends and medieval/Dark Ages history begins.


But, this book will not fill that void except for the most dauntless of readers, Justinian is not dealt with in any organized fashion after the first few chapters he becomes an office rather than a person, Belisarius is described in one campaign after another but you never get a feel for him, The wordy writing style gets in the way of any chance to have the story told, All historians need to remember that they are telling a story and telling it in one's best dissertationspeak does not necessarily tell it well and certainly makes it less interesting for most readers.


What Rosen does do well too well is, . .

Read more at: sitelink blogspot. com This was a pleasing read, a headfirst dive into Byzantine history informed with a historyofscience concept: what is the "Black death" and how did it influence history

I was really expecting the disease to be front and center from the beginning, but instead, the entire first half of the book is an extended exposition on the vicissitudes of the Roman empire from the third century onward, when the Western empire collapsed, and the Eastern empire struggled to maintain a foothold in Europe even as it faced off against a constant barrage of enemies on all sides.
We get portraits of the emperors Diocletian, who divided the civil and military administrations and tried to regularize imperial succession, to Constantine, who established Christianity and added so much to the capital that would be named after him.
Young Justinian, who like his predecessors had been born a peasant out in the wilds of the Balkans, sought his destiny among the early Church fathers, Platonists who helped forge his vision of a unified empire supported by a balance of Greek, Latin, and Christian thought.


Meanwhile the Goths emerged from murky origins in Northern Europe, and the Huns rode down like an avalanche, one of many waves of warrior horsemen of the European Steppe.
The declining empire struggled mightily to manage these external others, at times facing crushing defeats, as at the battle of Adrianople, in which fifty thousand Roman soldiers were killed, along with Emperor Valens: "In Ammianuss telling, the wounded emperor was taken from the field, and placed in a nearby farmhouse just before it was burned down by its Gothic besiegers, thus 'unwittingly lighting a funeral pyre for the last Arian emperor of Rome.
” Part of Rosens talent in these chapters is to introduce the ancient chroniclers and select mots justes to bring us into these highly dramatic scenes.
He also goes a bit further than Ive seen to describe the varying social structures of these ancient societies, The Visigoths, for example, were a roving band, something between an army and a protonational people, This brings us to another of Bowens talents, which is an occasional sentence of such concrete metaphor as to stick very well in the mind: "Its all rather as if an expedition intended to revenge Custers defeat of Little Big Horn was led by a Sioux general commanding an army of Irishmen, West Indians, and Chinese.
” Bravo! Under Alaric, a new Visigothic Kingdom had the recognition of Rome, in exchange for attacking the Vandals, After the charismatic Attila died, the empire tried to coopt the Huns in the same way, but the situation quickly turned into a complex shambles overseen by a more or less bumbling set of emperors before Justinian.
This latter rose to power partly by supporting one of a group of street gangs that dominated the city of Constantinople, and soon after by marrying Theodora, a bearkeepers daughter who climbed her way out of the performing world of the Hippodrome, also with assists from street gangs.
The new emperor would also prove adept at choosing topquality delegates, like the general, Belisarius, who quickly lead the Eastern Roman armies to victories over the Persians thanks to his creative strategies.


Protests calling for release of gangsters led to a week of riots and fires in the city, in, Justinian survived the storm and immediately ordered rebuilding we next get a loving description of the reconstructed Hagia Sophia a mustread for any fans of sitelinkBrunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture.
Justinians extremelevel ambition for international statecraft led him to delegate Tribonian with the development of the Institutes, which contained a civil law code, a leap for rule of law recognized by James Madison.
And there is a seal with a portrait of Tribonian in the House of Representatives, now, Meanwhile, Belisarius was sent off to the Mediterranean to defeat a Vandal invasion, which he did handily, though not with some odd tactics like running grain mills off river currents has there ever been an action movie that took medieval siege warfare seriously Another general, Narses, also has a few battle anecdotes all his own.


Arguably, there is too much background in these two sections, Bowen relies mostly on Procopius, the historian not only of the wars of the era, traveling as he was alongside Belisarius, but author also of a secret history exposing the evil hedonism of Justinians empress, Theodora.
I was reminded of the slightly more condensed version of this narrative from Durants Age of Faith, and glad to meet the characters again.
Then, suddenly, we get to part three, and turn abruptly to observing bacteria along side Anton van Leeuwenhoek, sometime around, And this is merely a segue into the story of prokaryotic life, which Bowen links to civilizations by analogy, both governed by the principles of evolution.
"Neither a civilization nor a species,” he says in one example of this, “Can effortlessly change a survival tactic once it is mastered, any more than a drop of water can retrace its path to the point where one river turned into two.
” Bacteria have a very special place in the map of evolution mindboggling, really: “For nearly two billion years, bacteria were not only the lords of creation they were creation itself.
” One is led to imagine
Yersinia pseudotuberculosis in at least as much finery as Justinian himself! The biological exposition goes on to include references to Richard Dawkins, a quick explanation of the Krebs cycle, and much more discourse on the anatomy of fleas than I have ever seen.
Bowen turns from there to dwell on the crossMediterranean trade in wheat, which was certainly what brought the rats carrying plague from Egypt up to Asia.
Bowens passion to get to the origin of every historical identifier in his book is defeated by diversity of theories regarding the origin of plague bacteria, so he simply divides his efforts to consider whether it came from the Himalayas, the steppes, or from Africa.


Y. Pestis has extraordinary genetic features, with deep implications for anyone wondering about the existence of designing order to the universe the fatal compounds of the bacteria are in fact likely intended help the bacteria fasten into and dominate flea bodies their effect on humans is entirely accidental.
Regardless, with the trade in grain now connecting most of the Mediterranean coast, plague was poised to infect all of Europe and Asia, asturned to.


Such are the complexities of global history, though that even as a horrific pandemic began draining the population of one of the worlds centers of civilizations, another heavyhitter was just emerging to attack using conventional warfare the Sassanid Persians, under their king, Khusro, who saw himself as the Justinians fated nemesis.
That Belisarius should wage a defensive war while plague plagued, and win, seems impossible, But Bowen zooms in for a closelyobserved exposition on how it was done siege warfare, again, And the plague did takes its toll, Frankish domination of Europe which, we have to step back and review, along the lines laid down by Gregory of Tours was likely set back by plague.
But the overriding point here is that plague does not seem to have stopped or slowed the advance of civilization under larger forces of military, religious, and political organization.
In the further wars of more Goths, more Lombards, Suevs, Slavs, and on and on, the plague seems almost an omittable factor, Neither Chinas growth and reunification in the early middle ages, nor the beginnings of the Arab conquests, seem to have been held back, Questions about the plagues effect on complex systems involving population, labor, and agricultural technology go no where, in Bowens epilogue,

So why read this book Well, it does have an impressive prose style, The stories are welltold, and dramatic, Rarely have I ever seen a worldhistoricist account that tries to accommodate the history of science the history of a bacterium! It was worth the effort, even if, in conclusion, the relations of species to species, and of social units of homo sapiens to each other, are not actually located.
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