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'A fascinating story about a religion in a surprisingly precarious
position' Dan Jones, Sunday Times 'Superb storytelling ...
captivating and profound' Literary Review 'A page-turner' The
Spectator In the fourth century AD, a new faith exploded out of
Palestine. Overwhelming the paganism of Rome, and converting the
Emperor Constantine in the process, it resoundingly defeated a host
of other rivals. Almost a thousand years later, all of Europe was
controlled by Christian rulers, and the religion, ingrained within
culture and society, exercised a monolithic hold over its
population. But, as Peter Heather shows in this compelling history,
there was nothing inevitable about Christendom's rise to
Europe-wide dominance. In exploring how the Christian religion
became such a defining feature of the European landscape, and how a
small sect of isolated congregations was transformed into a mass
movement centrally directed from Rome, Heather shows how
Christendom constantly battled against both so-called 'heresies'
and other forms of belief. From the crisis that followed the
collapse of the Roman Empire, which left the religion teetering on
the edge of extinction, to the astonishing revolution in which the
Papacy emerged as the head of a vast international corporation,
Heather traces Christendom's chameleon-like capacity for
self-reinvention and willingness to mobilize well-directed force.
Christendom's achievement was not, or not only, to define official
Christianity, but - from its scholars and its lawyers, to its
provincial officials and missionaries in far-flung corners of the
continent - to transform it into an institution that wielded
effective religious authority across nearly all of the disparate
peoples of medieval Europe. This is its extraordinary story.
Over the last three centuries, the West rose to dominate the
planet. Then, suddenly, around the turn of the millennium, history
reversed. Faced with economic stagnation and internal political
division, the West has found itself in rapid decline. This is not
the first time the global order has witnessed such a dramatic rise
and fall. The Roman Empire followed a similar arc from dizzying
power to disintegration - a fact that is more than a strange
historical coincidence. In Why Empires Fall, historian Peter
Heather and political economist John Rapley use this Roman past to
think anew about the contemporary West, its state of crisis, and
what paths we could take out of it. In this exceptional,
transformative intervention, Heather and Rapley explore the uncanny
parallels - and productive differences - between the two cases,
moving beyond the familiar tropes of invading barbarians and
civilizational decay to learn new lessons from ancient history.
From 399 to 1999, the life cycles of empires, they argue, sow the
seeds of their inevitable destruction. The era of western global
domination has reached its end - so what comes next?
At the start of the first millennium AD, southern and western
Europe formed part of the Mediterranean-based Roman Empire, the
largest state western Eurasia has ever known. This book tells the
story of the transformations which changed western Eurasia forever:
of the birth of Europe itself.
In AD 378 the Roman Empire had been the unrivalled superpower of
Europe for well over four hundred years. And yet, August that year
saw a small group of German-speaking asylum-seekers rout a vast
Imperial army at Hadrianople, killing the Emperor and establishing
themselves on Roman territory. Within a hundred years the last
Emperor of the Western Empire had been deposed. What had gone
wrong? In this ground breaking book, Peter Heather proproses a
stunning new solution to one of the greatest mysteries of history.
Mixing authoratative analysis with thrilling narrative, he brings
fresh insight into the panorama of the empire's end, from the
bejewelled splendour of the imperial court to the dripping forests
of "Barbaricum". He examines the extraordinary success story that
was the Roman Empire and uses a new understanding of its continued
strength and enduring limitations to show how Europe's barbarians,
transformed by centuries of contact with Rome, eventually pulled it
apart. 'a colourful and enthralling narrative . . .an account full
of keen wit and an infectious relish for the period.' Independent
On Sunday 'provides the reader with drama and lurid colour as well
as analysis . . . succeeds triumphantly.' Sunday Times 'a
fascinating story, full of ups and downs and memorable characters'
Spectator 'bursting with action . . .one can recommend to anyone,
whether specialist or interested amateur.' History Today 'a rare
combination of scholarship and flair for narrative' Tom Holland
This volume brings together many important historical texts, the
majority of them (speeches of Themistius, the Passion of St Saba,
and evidence relating to the life and work of Ulfila) not
previously available in English translation.
The work of top scholars in Visigothic studies... Using all
evidence available, the volume addresses the evolution of the
Visigoths in early medieval history. CHOICE Indispensable for all
scholars of the Visigoths. ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW Books on the
Visigoths and Visigothic Spain in English are rare, so this is a
welcome addition to their ranks... wide-ranging collection (which)
has much to offer, not just to Spanish studies but to students of
late antiquity in general. CLASSICAL REVIEW Between 376 and 476 the
Roman Empire in western Europe was dismantled by aggressive
outsiders, barbarians' as the Romans labelled them. Chief among
these were the Visigoths, a new force of previously separate Gothic
and other groups from south-west France, initially settled by the
Romans but subsequently, from the middle of the fifth century,
achieving total independence from the failing Roman Empire, and
extending their power from the Loire to the Straits of Gibraltar.
These studies draw on literary and archaeological evidence to
address important questions thrown up by the history of the
Visigoths and of the kingdom they generated: the historical
processes which led to their initial creation; the emergence of the
Visigothic kingdom in the fifth century; and the government,
society, culture and economy of the mature' kingdom of the sixth
and seventh centuries. A valuable feature of the collection,
reflecting the switch of the centre of the Visigothic kingdom from
France to Spain from the beginning of the sixth century, is the
inclusion, in English, of current Spanish scholarship. Dr PETER
HEATHERteaches in the Department of History at University College
London.
In the fourth century AD, a new faith exploded out of Palestine.
Overwhelming the paganism of Rome, and converting the Emperor
Constantine in the process, it resoundingly defeated a host of
other rivals. Almost a thousand years later, all of Europe was
controlled by Christian rulers, and the religion, ingrained within
culture and society, exercised a monolithic hold over its
population. But, as Peter Heather shows in this compelling history,
there was nothing inevitable about Christendom's rise to
Europe-wide dominance. In exploring how the Christian religion
became such a defining feature of the European landscape, and how a
small sect of isolated congregations was transformed into a mass
movement centrally directed from Rome, Heather shows how
Christendom constantly battled against both so-called 'heresies'
and other forms of belief. From the crisis that followed the
collapse of the Roman Empire, which left the religion teetering on
the edge of extinction, to the astonishing revolution in which the
Papacy emerged as the head of a vast international corporation,
Heather traces Christendom's chameleon-like capacity for
self-reinvention and willingness to mobilize well-directed force.
Christendom's achievement was not, or not only, to define official
Christianity, but - from its scholars and its lawyers, to its
provincial officials and missionaries in far-flung corners of the
continent - to transform it into an institution that wielded
effective religious authority across nearly all of the disparate
peoples of medieval Europe. This is its extraordinary story.
The death of the Roman Empire is one of the perennial mysteries of
world history. Now, in this groundbreaking book, Peter Heather
proposes a stunning new solution: Centuries of imperialism turned
the neighbors Rome called barbarians into an enemy capable of
dismantling an Empire that had dominated their lives for so long. A
leading authority on the late Roman Empire and on the barbarians,
Heather relates the extraordinary story of how Europe's barbarians,
transformed by centuries of contact with Rome on every possible
level, eventually pulled the empire apart. He shows first how the
Huns overturned the existing strategic balance of power on Rome's
European frontiers, to force the Goths and others to seek refuge
inside the Empire. This prompted two generations of struggle,
during which new barbarian coalitions, formed in response to Roman
hostility, brought the Roman west to its knees. The Goths first
destroyed a Roman army at the battle of Hadrianople in 378, and
went on to sack Rome in 410. The Vandals spread devastation in Gaul
and Spain, before conquering North Africa, the breadbasket of the
Western Empire, in 439. We then meet Attila the Hun, whose reign of
terror swept from Constantinople to Paris, but whose death in 453
ironically precipitated a final desperate phase of Roman collapse,
culminating in the Vandals' defeat of the massive Byzantine Armada:
the west's last chance for survival. Peter Heather convincingly
argues that the Roman Empire was not on the brink of social or
moral collapse. What brought it to an end were the barbarians.
Matt Hiatt has recently returned from a tour in Afghanistan with
Special Operations. While stationed at Pendleton, the Marines allow
him to work for a civilian company called Delta Defense. Delta
Defense engineers and develops weapons for the U.S. military and
rely on Matt's expertise for field-testing the equipment. Since his
return from the Middle East, Matt has experienced several recurring
dreams about a woman he doesn't know and hasn't met (yet). He
documents the dreams in a journal to keep track of their content
and recurrence. While at work one morning, Matt receives an instant
message from a man named Sesom who warns Matt that people are
tracking him and his life is in danger. Sesom invites Matt to meet
him at a popular cafe near Delta Defense to share more details of
his discovery. While Matt is skeptical, he has had a few strange
encounters recently and would like to meet Sesom to understand why
someone would want to track him. The meeting reveals that people
are following Matt and want to kill him before he has a chance to
reveal his dreams and visions. Sesom also shares that Matt's
visions are a catalyst to the beginning of Revelation and an
inevitable return of the Messiah. The meeting at the cafe ends in
bloodshed and Matt witnesses firsthand that a group of evil people
intends to end his life. Matt finds out there are Disciples that
found Sesom by their own visions and discovery. Matt is unique
because Sesom had visions of finding him in the City of Angels, and
Matt's knowledge could hold the secret to understanding the
beginning of Revelation. These modern day Disciples are different
than Disciples that followed Jesus 2000 years ago. While the
Disciples have a strong conviction in their own beliefs and skills,
they come from different religions and two of them are women. The
Disciples have come from all over the world to follow Sesom as he
searches for the meaning of his visions and subsequent calling.
They are trained in martial arts, hand-to-hand combat, specialized
weapons, kendo, karate, and information gathering and sharing.
Their trips take them to the Western Wall of Jerusalem and the
Vatican in Rome. The Disciples find the woman of Matt's dreams in
Jerusalem and she becomes much more than a metaphor in Matt's mind.
She has been touched by the Holy Spirit and is the key to the
second coming of the Messiah. However, she is in great danger and
at risk of being eliminated by a group of evil people that call
themselves Samil. With twists and turns at every page, the
Disciples embark on a journey together to understand their fate.
After two years of waiting, they have found critical partners in
their journey of faith and understanding. The 12th Disciple is the
first novel in a series of books that will usher in Revelation and
the 2nd coming of the Messiah. One problem is of great concern for
the Disciples. The second coming may have been aborted. Book One in
The 12th Disciple series.
This volume begins with an introductory chapter on Orator, Emperor,
and Senate. It then presents translations of a selection of
speeches of Themistius, grouped into chapters that deal with a key
period in the evolution of his career or with a sequence of events
of particular historical significance. Chapter two explores
Themistius' initial rise to prominence and includes translations of
orations one and three as well as of the letter of Constantius to
the Senate. Orations five and six are included in chapter three,
which explores the themes of Themistius' ability to jump between
regimes and of the religious controversies of the 360s. With
chapter four (orations 14-16), the story leaps forward a decade and
a half to the turbulent years of Theodosius, charting the evolution
of his policies as he struggled to constrain the warring Goths.
Chapter five, finally, brings the story to the twilight of
Themistius' career and the controversy that erupted when he agreed
to become urban prefect of Constantinople in 383/384. Orations 17
and 34 presented here, not only illuminate that controversy, but
also how Themistius wished his lifetime's achievement to be viewed.
In 476 AD, the last of Rome's emperors, known as "Augustulus," was
deposed by a barbarian general, the son of one of Attila the Hun's
henchmen. With the imperial vestments dispatched to Constantinople,
the curtain fell on the Roman empire in Western Europe, its
territories divided among successor kingdoms constructed around
barbarian military manpower.
But, if the Roman Empire was dead, Romans across much of the old
empire still lived, holding on to their lands, their values, and
their institutions. The conquering barbarians, responding toRome's
continuing psychological dominance and the practical value of many
of its institutions, were ready to reignite the imperial flame and
enjoy the benefits. As Peter Heather shows in dazzling biographical
portraits, each of the three greatest immediate contenders for
imperial power--Theoderic, Justinian, and Charlemagne--operated
with a different power base but was astonishingly successful in his
own way. Though each in turn managed to put back together enough of
the old Roman West to stake a plausible claim to the Western
imperial title, none of their empires long outlived their founders'
deaths. Not until the reinvention of the papacy in the eleventh
century would Europe's barbarians find the means to establish a new
kind of Roman Empire, one that has lasted a thousand years.
A sequel to the bestselling Fall of the Roman Empire, The
Restoration of Rome offers a captivating narrative of the death of
an era and the birth of the Catholic Church.
This book examines the collision of Goths and Romans in the fourth
and fifth centuries. In these years Gothic tribes played a major
role in the destruction of the western half of the Roman Empire,
moving the length of Europe from what is now the USSR to establish
successor states to the Roman Empire in southern France and Spain
(the Visigoths) and in Italy (the Ostrogoths). Our understanding of
the Goths in this "Migration Period" has been based upon the Gothic
historian Jordanes, whose mid-sixth-century Getica suggests that
the Visigoths and Ostrogoths entered the Empire already established
as coherent groups and simply conquered new territories. Using more
contemporary sources, Peter Heather is able to show that, on the
contrary, Visigoths and Ostrogoths were new and unprecedentedly
large social groupings, and that many Gothic societies failed even
to survive the upheavals of the Migration Period. Dr Heather's
scholarly study explores the complicated interactions with Roman
power which both prompted the creation of the Visigoths and
Ostrogoths around newly emergent dynasties and helped bring about
the fall of the Roman Empire.
In 476 AD the last of Rome's emperors was deposed by a barbarian
general, the son of one of Attila the Hun's henchmen, and the
imperial vestments were despatched to Constantinople. The curtain
fell on the Roman Empire in Western Europe, its territories divided
between successor kingdoms constructed around barbarian military
manpower. But if the Roman Empire was dead, the dream of restoring
it refused to die. In many parts of the old Empire, real Romans
still lived, holding on to their lands, the values of their
civilisation, its institutions; the barbarians were ready to
reignite the imperial flame and to enjoy the benefits of Roman
civilization, the three greatest contenders being Theoderic,
Justinian and Charlemagne. But, ultimately, they would fail and it
was not until the reinvention of the papacy in the eleventh century
that Europe's barbarians found the means to generate a new Roman
Empire, an empire which has lasted a thousand years.
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