Get It Now Barbarians And Romans: The Birth Struggle Of Europe, A.D. 400-700 Brought To You By Justine Davis Randers-Pehrson Accessible Via Text

very readable and fairly comprehensive look at the transition from Roman Empire to initially Barbarian Europe, The author does a really interesting job of drawing from artifacts as well as documents for research, and presents the historical happenings with a bit of narrative flair.
She also does a good job of acknowledging points that are in contention among historians or otherwise unclear due to lack of evidence,
The only real drawback for me was the treatment of Christianity, The role of the church was duly acknowledged, but individuals and their actions were framed in terms of the political developments of the time and anything outside of that was dismissed as superstitious, conniving, or just delightfully quaint.

It would have been nice if there was a little more said about the suspected reasons behind the age of migrations that are the real hallmark of the barbarian period in Europe.
Also, though it is beyond the scope of the book, I am left wondering now how feudalism really developed out of what was then largely fragmented Europe.
This firstrate survey is proof, to me, that you dont have to be a tenured academic to write solid academic history, The author like me is a librarian of broad and deep experience, She also did graduate study at Heidelberg and the Sorbonne, and acted as a translator and foreignlanguage editor for the federal government, This study of the transitional period between the classical world and medieval Europe takes the position with which I have long agreed

that Rome never really “fell,” and that Rome and the Germanic tribes were not bent on mutual destruction.
Thats far too dramatic and selfconscious an interpretation of events, Rather, the Germanic peoples most of them, most of the time admired and envied what Rome represented and wanted in on it, Rome, its internal resources stretched dangerously, saw the outsiders as a source of military strength and agricultural labor, Both sides profited from the contact, And the Germans, most of whom didnt actually desire to become Roman, found themselves more and more Romanized, while the empire found itself slipping farther and farther into the Germanic orbit politically and culturally.
The authors method is to center her highly literate discussion on the geographical settings of great events, from Rome, Ravenna, and Constantinople, to Barcelona, Trier, and Carthage.
She describes the life of the times both from the bottom up and from the top down, which is about as much balance as one may achieve at the remove of fifteen centuries.
Over a long period of time, she visited almost every location she mentions and the volume includes more than eighty illustrations and color plates, mostly supplied by her.
Her style is educated, yet colorful, which makes it a good starting point for the nonspecialist who has developed an interest in the period.
There are no footnotes, but the bibliography is extensive and detailed, Paper reprint of ahistory that not only encapsulates the author's research but also conveys her profound scholarly sensibilities and love of her work.
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