History Forum / General / Ancient History / July 2008

No kidding!

I don't know, I just saw a blurb for the book which reads:

The barbarians who destroyed the glory that was Rome demolished
civilization along with it, and for the next four centuries the peasants
and artisans of Europe barely held on. Random violence, mass migration,
disease, and starvation were the only way of life. This is the picture
of the Dark Ages that most historians promote. But archaeology tells a
different story. Peter S. Wells, one of the world's leading
archaeologists, surveys the archaeological record to demonstrate that
the Dark Ages were not dark at all. The kingdoms of Christendom that
emerged starting in the ninth century sprang from a robust, previously
little-known, European culture, albeit one that left behind few written
texts. This recently recognized culture achieved heights in artistry,
technology, craft production, commerce, and learning. Future assessments
of the period between Rome and Charlemagne will need to incorporate this
fresh new picture.

I tried to get a session at a conference that focused on some of the
recent works on Late Antiquity: Wells, Halsall, Heather, Ward-Perkins,
Julia Smith, WICKHAM ETC...and sought to discuss the impasse re: the
"Fall of Rome", but the session was rejected.

It was the Byzantines when they took it back.

And bums go to the Big Rock Candy Mountain when they die.