The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity
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Review
..."as a summary of the "state of the study," this book is invaluable- comprehensive, insightful, and wonderfully lucid. The endnotes alone make this text a superlative resource for advanced courses and seminars in classical and medieval history...Historians who focus on only one region of the Mediterranean...will be challenged by its breadth of vision, mastery of detail, and up-to-date currency.."
-" AHNC Journal, Vol. 4, Fall 1996
-" AHNC Journal, Vol. 4, Fall 1996
Product Description
The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity provides both a detailed introduction to late antiquity, and a direct challenge to the conventional views of the end of the empire.
A world expert on the subject, Averil Cameron focuses on the changes and continuities in Mediterranean society as a whole before the Arab conquests of the seventh century.
With modern, in-depth archaeological evidence, this all-round factual, historical and thematic study of the west and eastern empires will become the standard work on the period. With suggested specialized reading, it should already be an essential item on the reading lists of classical studies and archaeology students.
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First Sentence
On the death of Theodosius I in AD 395, Constantinople had been an imperial seat for over sixty years, since the refoundation of the classical city of Byzantium as Constantinople ('the city of Constantine') by Constantine the Great. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
On the death of Theodosius I in AD 395, Constantinople had been an imperial seat for over sixty years, since the refoundation of the classical city of Byzantium as Constantinople ('the city of Constantine') by Constantine the Great. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity, AD 395-700, new revised and expanded edition, 2011
5 Sep 2011
Format:Paperback
Buyers need to know that there is currently a confusion on the Amazon site between the first edition of this book (1993) and the new, thoroughly revised and expanded edition, due out in September 2011.The existing review online is of the 1993 edition, and so is the image (though the caption gives the new end date of AD 700). The 2011 edition, which has a different cover. carries the coverage to AD 700 (not 600), and has extra material throughout, more chapters and a totally updated complete bibliography. Potential buyers need to know which one they are buying - especially as the new edition completely supersedes the first, and has been brought fully up-to-date with all the research since 1993. 'Used' copies are presumably of the 1993 edition, but care needs also to be taken with the 'new' copies. This misleading information needs to be changed by Amazon a.s.a.p.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Averil Cameron is a fellow of the British Academy and a warden of Keble College in Oxford, where she has spent many years teaching students about this period of history. This book acts almost as an intermediate work, in that it might be too difficult for absolute beginners, but on the other hand it might be too simple for experts. Students of the period, or interested amateurs with some grounding in the period will find it useful though.
Ms. Cameron takes the reader on a trip through Byzantium and the Eastern Mediterranean between the years AD 395 and AD 600. These were the formative years of the Eastern Roman Empire. It was a period which saw Constantinople rise to prominence to supersede Ravenna and Rome, but only to be flattened by the Rise of Islam, and its long wars against Sassanid Persia.
This is not a chronological history of the period, but rather a thematic guide. Chapters discuss topics such as the city of Constantinople, the late Roman army, Church and Society, social structures and the economy, culture and mentality, and urban change and the end of late antiquity. Only the chapter on Justinian's reign comes close to being a historical narrative.
This book is a useful guide, but I must admit that I found the writing a little dry. Some sections were interesting to read while others were a struggle to go through. That said, I did find the book useful.
I recommended this book as it does contain valuable information, but it is let down by the dull writing. It is recommended you get a copy of Averil Cameron's The Later Roman Empire, as this book feels almost like a sequel to that other book.
Ms. Cameron takes the reader on a trip through Byzantium and the Eastern Mediterranean between the years AD 395 and AD 600. These were the formative years of the Eastern Roman Empire. It was a period which saw Constantinople rise to prominence to supersede Ravenna and Rome, but only to be flattened by the Rise of Islam, and its long wars against Sassanid Persia.
This is not a chronological history of the period, but rather a thematic guide. Chapters discuss topics such as the city of Constantinople, the late Roman army, Church and Society, social structures and the economy, culture and mentality, and urban change and the end of late antiquity. Only the chapter on Justinian's reign comes close to being a historical narrative.
This book is a useful guide, but I must admit that I found the writing a little dry. Some sections were interesting to read while others were a struggle to go through. That said, I did find the book useful.
I recommended this book as it does contain valuable information, but it is let down by the dull writing. It is recommended you get a copy of Averil Cameron's The Later Roman Empire, as this book feels almost like a sequel to that other book.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5 reviews
20 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Highly recommended
8 Oct 1998
Format:Paperback
Anyone looking for an introduction to Late Antiquity will find this book not only interesting, but also helpful because it provides a well structured overview of the life in the Mediterranean during Late Antiquity. Unlike other books on the subject, this one is easy to understand for those who are not necessarily experts in Ancient Rome, yet at the same time it deals with the subject in an intelligent manner.
18 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Interesting, but a difficult slog
2 Jan 2008
Format:Paperback
Many of the books on this subject are far too technical and presume far too much background on the part of the average layman to be readable. This book is understandable, but deals with far too many theroretical issues for my taste. Much better, in my view, is "Justinian's flea" which is about much more than just the first bubonic plague to hit Europe.
One of the biggest issues is the writing, which is rambling and unstructured. Take for example the following sentence in the conclusion, "Not merely was it faced by the 'barbarian invasions' in the west (which, as we saw, were deflected from the east only with some difficulty) and the Persian invasions, followed by the Arab conquests, in the east: changes in central Asia led in the fifth century to danger from the Huns, fortanately dissolved after the death of Attila, and later to the apperance of the Hephthalites, who threatened Constantinople at the end of the rein of Justinian." And don't expect to find Hephtalites in the Index to review their role; it's not in there.
One of the biggest issues is the writing, which is rambling and unstructured. Take for example the following sentence in the conclusion, "Not merely was it faced by the 'barbarian invasions' in the west (which, as we saw, were deflected from the east only with some difficulty) and the Persian invasions, followed by the Arab conquests, in the east: changes in central Asia led in the fifth century to danger from the Huns, fortanately dissolved after the death of Attila, and later to the apperance of the Hephthalites, who threatened Constantinople at the end of the rein of Justinian." And don't expect to find Hephtalites in the Index to review their role; it's not in there.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Meditterranean Tales
5 Mar 2008
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This excellent book provides a chronicle of the devolution of Roman Imperial Authority from Rome to Constantinople (Istanbul) during the 4th and 5th Centuries. In doing so the author also provides a fascinating look at the transformation of the society and culture of what was always a Mediterranean based Empire.
The tumultuous years from 395 CE through 600 CE saw the effective implosion of Western Roman Empire under pressure from both barbarian invasions and internal contradictions. How this came about and what its consequences were, are two of the threads of this book. Another thread is how the Eastern Roman Empire and especially its capitol, Constantinople, were transformed into the Greek Byzantine Empire. In developing these threads, Cameron does a good deal to clarify both the economic and military conditions of the late Roman Empire. While his expositions are necessarily brief they provide a good understanding of what was actually happening as the last European Empire of ancient times was transformed into something quite different. Rather surprisingly, Cameron does not devote many words to the development of the Western Catholic Church as the spiritual successor to the Western Empire. An interesting thread of this book does discuss is the efforts by the Greco-Roman Emperor Justinian to restore the Mediterranean Sea as a Roman Lake. Justinian succeeded briefly in doing this, but left the Eastern Empire bankrupt and vulnerable to both the Persian Empire and to the Islamic Conquests of the 7th Century.
This book would be a good follow-on to David Potter's, "The Roman Empire at Bay A.D. 180-395" (Amazon.com). The disappearance of the Roman Empire was a long term, complex phenomenon that is made much more understandable by books such as these.
The tumultuous years from 395 CE through 600 CE saw the effective implosion of Western Roman Empire under pressure from both barbarian invasions and internal contradictions. How this came about and what its consequences were, are two of the threads of this book. Another thread is how the Eastern Roman Empire and especially its capitol, Constantinople, were transformed into the Greek Byzantine Empire. In developing these threads, Cameron does a good deal to clarify both the economic and military conditions of the late Roman Empire. While his expositions are necessarily brief they provide a good understanding of what was actually happening as the last European Empire of ancient times was transformed into something quite different. Rather surprisingly, Cameron does not devote many words to the development of the Western Catholic Church as the spiritual successor to the Western Empire. An interesting thread of this book does discuss is the efforts by the Greco-Roman Emperor Justinian to restore the Mediterranean Sea as a Roman Lake. Justinian succeeded briefly in doing this, but left the Eastern Empire bankrupt and vulnerable to both the Persian Empire and to the Islamic Conquests of the 7th Century.
This book would be a good follow-on to David Potter's, "The Roman Empire at Bay A.D. 180-395" (Amazon.com). The disappearance of the Roman Empire was a long term, complex phenomenon that is made much more understandable by books such as these.
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