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Europe After Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000
by: Julia M.H. Smith

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Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 940
EAN: 9780192892638
ISBN: 0192892630
Label: OUP Oxford
Manufacturer: OUP Oxford
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 384
Publication Date: June 28, 2007
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Studio: OUP Oxford
Sales Rank: 50404

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Editorial Review:

Review:
Remarkable Gabrel Josipovici, Times Literary Supplement should be read completely by all early medievalists... carefully crafted study and survey Lynette Olson, Reviews in History

Product Description:
This is the first single-author study in over fifty years to offer an integrated appraisal of the early Middle Ages as a dynamic and formative period in European history. Written in an attractive and accessible style, it makes extensive use of original sources to introduce early medieval men and women at all levels of society from slave to emperor, and allows them to speak to the reader in their own words. It overturns traditional narratives and instead offers an entirely fresh approach to the centuries from c.500 to c.1000. Rejecting any notion of a dominant, uniform early medieval culture, it argues that the fundamental characteristic of the early middle ages is diversity of experience. To explain how the men and women who lived in this period ordered their world in cultural, social, and political terms, it employs an innovative methodology combining cultural history, regional studies, and gender history. Ranging comparatively from Ireland to Hungary and from Scotland and Scandinavia to Spain and Italy, the analysis highlights three themes: regional variation, power, and the legacy of Rome. The book's eight chapters examine the following subjects: Speaking and Writing; Living and Dying; Friends and Relations; Men and Women; Labour and Lordship; Getting and Giving; Kingship and Christianity; Rome and the Peoples of Europe. Collectively, they establish the complex cultural realities which distinguished Europe in the period between the end of the central institutions of the western Roman empire in the fifth century and the emergence of a Rome-centred papal monarchy from the late eleventh century onwards. In the context of debates about the social, religious and cultural meaning of 'Europe' in the early twenty-first century, this books seeks the origins of European cultural pluralism and diversity in the early Middle Ages.

Synopsis:
This is the first single-author study in over fifty years to offer an integrated appraisal of the early Middle Ages as a dynamic and formative period in European history. Written in an attractive and accessible style, it makes extensive use of original sources to introduce early medieval men and women at all levels of society from slave to emperor, and allows them to speak to the reader in their own words. It overturns traditional narratives and instead offers an entirely fresh approach to the centuries from c.500 to c.1000. Rejecting any notion of a dominant, uniform early medieval culture, it argues that the fundamental characteristic of the early middle ages is diversity of experience. To explain how the men and women who lived in this period ordered their world in cultural, social, and political terms, it employs an innovative methodology combining cultural history, regional studies, and gender history. Ranging comparatively from Ireland to Hungary and from Scotland and Scandinavia to Spain and Italy, the analysis highlights three themes: regional variation, power, and the legacy of Rome.

The book's eight chapters examine the following subjects: Speaking and Writing; Living and Dying; Friends and Relations; Men and Women; Labour and Lordship; Getting and Giving; Kingship and Christianity; Rome and the Peoples of Europe. Collectively, they establish the complex cultural realities which distinguished Europe in the period between the end of the central institutions of the western Roman empire in the fifth century and the emergence of a Rome-centred papal monarchy from the late eleventh century onwards. In the context of debates about the social, religious and cultural meaning of 'Europe' in the early twenty-first century, this books seeks the origins of European cultural pluralism and diversity in the early Middle Ages.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Revaluating Europe's Dark Ages
The excellent work compiled by History Professor Julia M.H. Smith is truly devoted to the clarification and reconsideration of a time frame that has been at the centre of academic discussions amongst historians: the correct perspective under which the period of time spanning from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the dawn of the first millennium should be interpreted.

In defiance of a deeply rooted misconception that classifies the aforementioned five-hundred-year period as `barbarous' , the illustrious professor has compiled an excursus comprising a panoptic analysis of the gradual socio-political process that occurred after the end of the ancient world and culminated in the year 1000, which ended ipso facto the Middle Ages. ... Read More:

Rating:

- Synopsis
Don't be put off by the synposis! Whilst the book never claims to be geographically comprehensive and excludes Byzantium, this does not detract, in my view, from its value. Combined with Chris Wickham's Framing the Early Middle Ages, this work represents a vital evaluation of the period from the cutting edge of Medieval Scholarship.

Rating:

- Europe or just Western Europe?
My initial reaction to the synopsis of the book (which I have not read) is concern that this is solely focused on Western Europe and, if so, should say so. From Bari to Constantinople to Moscow would be a significant arc of experience to exclude and I hope it is the promotinoal material and not the book which has excluded the Orthodox and Eastern components of European formation.

Books : Europe After Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000