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kalthir posted:Picked this up yesterday. I wasn't very impressed by Norwich's history of the mediterranean, so I was sceptical about another book that in many ways was out of his comfort zone, but I've read the first few chapters and it's pretty good so far. I like The Shadow of the Sword, if only because it goes into a lot of detail regarding Sassanian Persia and Late Antique Mesopotamia, which is often missing in coverage of the period. The writing style also reminded me of a mixture of Edward Gibbon and Peter Brown, which is always a good thing. Although Holland is right in saying that Islam is rooted within Late Antiquity, and that the boundaries of the relgion were in flux up to the eighth century (see the role of Jerusalem in Early Islam), I don't completely agree with his sceptical view regarding the origins of Islam (.i.e. his speculation re: that Mecca and the Hijaz was not the cultic birthplace of the first 'Muslim Believers), as surely if Mecca didn't have any significance, there would be a lot more noise about it, especially from the many enemies of the Ummayad dynasts, who had a vested interest in making them look un-Islamic? Anyway, I'd recommend Peter Brown's The World of Late Antiquity, an amazing little book that made the study of the period of Late Antiquity a significant part of the study of medieval and ancient history in the discipline today. Porphyrogenitos fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Apr 22, 2012 |
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Apr 22, 2012 13:26
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wins32767 posted:Can someone recommend some works on Western Europe and North Africa from ~500AD-1000AD? I've done a tiny bit of reading on the Franks and Visigoths, but nothing on Italy, Germany, or England and the whole period fascinates me. Chris Wickham's The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400-1000 is a good, recent place to start.
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May 18, 2012 21:49
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