The inheritance of Rome : a history of Europe from 400 to 1000 /
Chris Wickham.
- First American edition.
- xi, 650 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.
- The Penguin history of Europe ; 2 .
- Penguin history of Europe ; 2. .
Includes bibliographical references (pages 565-622) and index.
I. THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND ITS BREAKUP, 400-550. The weight of empire -- Culture and belief in the Charistian Roman world -- Crisis and continuity, 400-550 -- II. THE POST-ROMAN WEST, 550-750. Merovingian Gaul and Germany, 500-751 -- The West Mediterranean kingdoms: Spain and Italy, 550-750 -- Kings without states: Britain and Ireland, 400-800 -- Post-Roman attitudes: culture, belief and political etiquette, 550-750 -- Wealth, exchange and peasant society -- The power of the visual: material cultuer and display from Imperial Rome to the Carolingians -- III. THE EMPIRES OF THE EAST, 550-1000.Byzantine survival, 550-850 -- The crystallization of Arab political power, 630-750 -- Byzantine revival, 850-1000 -- From 'Abbasid Baghdad to Umayyad Cordoba, 750-1000 -- The state and the economy: Eastern Mediterranean exchange networks, 600-1000 -- IV. THE CAROLINGIAN AND POST-CAROLINGIAN WEST, 750-1000. The Carolingian century, 751-887 -- Intellectuals and politics -- The 10th-century successor states -- 'Carolingian' England, 800-1000 -- Outer Europe -- Aristocrats between the Carolingian and the 'Feudal' worlds -- The caging of the peasantry, 800-1000 -- Trends in European history, 400-1000.
Historian Chris Wickham defies conventional views of the "Dark Ages" in European history with a work of rigorous yet accessible scholarship. Drawing on a wealth of new material and featuring a thoughtful synthesis of historical and archaeological approaches, Wickham argues that these centuries were critical in the formulation of European identity. Far from being a "middle" period between more significant epochs, this age has much to tell us in its own right about the progress of culture and the development of political thought. Wickham focuses on a world still profoundly shaped by Rome, which encompassed peoples ranging from Goths, Franks, and Vandals to Arabs, Anglo-Saxons, and Vikings. Digging deep into each culture, Wickham constructs a vivid portrait of a vast and varied world stretching from Ireland to Constantinople, the Baltic to the Mediterranean--the crucible in which Europe would ultimately be created.--From publisher description.