The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000 - Hardcover

Chris Wickham

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0713994290 ISBN 13: 9780713994292

Publisher: Allen Lane, 2009

Synopsis

The idea that with the decline of the Roman Empire Europe entered into some immense 'dark age' has long been viewed as inadequate by many historians. How could a world still so profoundly shaped by Rome and which encompassed such remarkable societies as the Byzantine, Carolingian and Ottonian empires, be anything other than central to the development of European history? How could a world of so many peoples, whether expanding, moving or stable, of Goths, Franks, Vandals, Byzantines, Arabs, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, whose genetic and linguistic inheritors we all are, not lie at the heart of how we understand ourselves? "The Inheritance of Rome" is a work of remarkable scope and ambition. Drawing on a wealth of new material, it is a book which will transform its many readers' ideas about the crucible in which Europe would in the end be created. From the collapse of the Roman imperial system to the establishment of the new European dynastic states, perhaps this book's most striking achievement is to make sense of an immensely long period of time, experienced by many generations of Europeans, and which, while it certainly included catastrophic invasions and turbulence, also contained long periods of continuity and achievement. From Ireland to Constantinople, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, this is a genuinely Europe-wide history of a new kind, with something surprising or arresting on every page.

About this title

About the Author

Chris Wickham is Chichele Professor of Medieval History at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of All Souls College. His book Framing the Middle Ages, which was published in 2005, won the Wolfson Prize, the Deutscher Memorial Prize and the James Henry Breasted Prize of the American Historical Association. He taught for many years at the University of Birmingham and is a Fellow of the British Academy.

Review

A work of tremendous authority and breadth. With this book, as with Charlemagne's empire, one feels that an extraordinary range of things have been brought together -- Noel Malcolm * Sunday Telegraph * Intensely rewarding -- Jonathan Sumption * Spectator * Almost every page is full of arresting details and insights ... and a sharp eye for a revealing anecdote, illuminating even the murkiest corners of the so-called Dark Ages -- Dominic Sandbrook * Daily Telegraph * The Penguin History of Europe series ... is one of contemporary publishing's great projects * New Statesman * With five volumes now out, the Penguin History of Europe series ... is shaping up to be the best general account available, superseding all previous ones * Economist *

Edition details

• Publisher: Allen Lane
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0713994290
• ISBN 13: 9780713994292
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 720