Customer Reviews

History of the Goths

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Wolfram takes on a difficult subject, the history of a people whose origins are crusted over with legends and generations of archaeological interpretations. Some of his conclusions have been challenged but Wolfram makes a solid case for many of his interpretations. His survey of Gothic history and culture is a landmark in Gothic research.

The book is intended for academics and therefore includes numerous citations and end-notes and footnotes. If the reader can ignore all the note references, the narrative flows well enough. Wolfram's detailed analysis does dispell a few nationalistic myths, but he replaces them with a thorough retelling of Gothic history. Most reference works about ancient Germanic peoples tend to speak of the Goths in an offhand manner. But they left a lasting imprint on several parts of Europe and Asia, even if we can no longer feel their presence today. Wolfram does a good job of removing the Goths from legend and putting them back into history.

Herwig Wolfram's HISTORY OF THE GOTHS is probably the best one-volume survey volume, perhaps the only, available on the Gothic tribes. These tribes, the quintessential "barbarians" who sacked and then succeeded the Western Roman Empire, were an amalgam of Germanic and Slavic bloodlines, who ultimately ruled large sections of the former Empire, and most notably Iberia.

As Wolfram admits, "A Goth was anyone who said he was," and the book suffers from the same lack of focus. Although attempts are made to discuss the social structure, culture, and history, military and otherwise, of the Goths, the discussions are superficial, rambling, and without point, and leave the reader feeling inconclusive. Wolfram seems fearful of drawing conclusions in this book, as if hypothesis or informed opinion might make him seem an irresponsible historian.

Who, after all, were these people, and why did they ravage Europe, and why were they so, finally, inestimably incapable of sustaining their identity? The book begs answers.

In part, the fault may be the writing style, which is textbook dry and lacks any sense (or attempt) at vividness. Wolfram's Goths are museum pieces, not a living, breathing community of people.

The scholarship of this work is exhaustive and astounding. Over half the book is comprised of Author's Notes and Bibliography. Certainly, if the reader has an abiding interest in Gothic history, this is a wonderful sourcebook for other, primary, materials.

Reading much more like a dissertation than a popular work of history, HISTORY OF THE GOTHS is a tedious and boring read, unless, like the author, you find these vanished people compellingly fascinating.

Understanding the Goths and their role in history used to be simple. On the one hand, you could go along with Alexander Pope in his "Essay on Criticism," and declare of the fall of Rome, "A second deluge learning thus o'errun, / And the monks finished what the Goths begun" (which is particularly pointed, given that Pope himself was a Catholic).

On the other hand, you could praise them. The reasons for favoring the Goths were somewhat diverse. For example, the Victorian socialist and poet (and designer and fantasy novelist, etc.) William Morris portrayed them as wonderful examples of folk-solidarity against the corruption and imperialism of Rome.

In Germany, at the same time, historians announced that they were convinced that the Goths demonstrated how the Germanic Race brought Freedom back into the world -- just like the Kaiser! (Leading Nietzsche to ask the difference between such a Conviction and an ordinary Lie. He also expressed relief that the ancient Germans, whose inferior blood had helped destroy the Roman Empire through intermarriage, were NOT ancestors of the modern Germans.)

In America, broad-minded scholars, brought up on the doctrine of Anglo-Saxon Liberty (and the Norman Yoke), rushed to recognize the continental Goths as honorary Anglo-Saxons, extending a privileged status to at least some Europeans.

All of these views (including Nietzsche's) depended on the assumption that the name Goth (and its variants) in ancient and early medieval texts always meant the same thing, and that the Ostrogoths and Visigoths were simply branches of the same original tribe -- "tribe" too being a term taken for granted (along with translating *gens* as *race*). This made things simple for archeologists; dig up something of about the right age in a place where "Goths" were supposed to have been living, and you know it was "Gothic." Find something similar someplace else, and you had discovered Goths.

Herwig Wolfram, reviewing another century of scholarship, shows that there are problems with every one of these assumptions (including Pope's). Even leaving aside the problem of the whole idea of a "tribe" as a recognizable entity (whether social or biological), ancient sources on the Goths and their divisions are not easy to understand. Entirely different population groups sometimes seem to have acquired the label, only to shed it again. Efforts to find a principle of continuity in royal dynasties follow the propaganda of self-promoted kings. And, of course, a whole body of writing from the middle of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth is interwoven with theories of racial superiority.

None of this makes for easy reading, or straightforward narrative. Instead, we get the clearing away of misconceptions, and an effort to evaluate competing modern theories. This is a really valuable book for anyone seriously interested in the problems associated with the later Roman Empire and the emergence of Barbarian Kingdoms in Italy and Spain. If you want a simple story, you will have to take your chances elsewhere.

Wolfram's "The History of the Goths" is a work deserving of high praise. If you want a book to give you an insightful, well-researched, & thoughtful glance at the Goths, then this is the one you'd want. It explores popular "myths" about the Goths from the Romantic era until the early- to mid-twentieth century. From there, we dive into a deep Ocean of ancient & medieval history, the written sources, language, archaeology, & many intriguing theories about the Goths - such as the question of their origins & their homelands, traces of their oral literature found among written sources from Antiquity until the Middle Ages... & thoughtful interpretations of "conventional" history, before & after the "fall" of the Roman Empire.

The Goths are one of those peoples from whom legends were made; sadly through a process of historical fate, & grave misrepresentation, the Goths are all but forgotten to contemporary popular knowledge. This book tries successfully to understand the world & culture of an ancient people so important to European history. If one has an inquiring mind, this book is no difficult read at all, - & for this motivation, it's a worthwhile investment.

What makes this book such tough sledding for the amateur historian? Is it because the book was translated from German to English? Whatever the cause, reading the book is as captivating as reading a similar account from an encyclopedia. It is more like reading a technical report than a book. Now the good news; the book is logically constructed, flows well, and has a dauntingly thorough bibliography. If you muster the self discipline to stay with the author, you will be rewarded with a deep knowledge of the Goths. It is a book by a historian for other academics. Frankly, there are more readable books on the subject available from other authors.

This is by far the worst book on the Goths I have found to date. While I will happily grant that this is a difficult subject about which to write, given the dearth of written history from the era and region, Wolfram takes wild stabs at the truth using etymological evidence that no linguist would ever consider legitimate. Wolfram's considerable bibliography has a number of questionable sources and his critiques of competing scholars (hidden in the footnotes) are laughable. Most of his cultural details are pure guesswork based on shady linguistics and archaeology which has never really been identified as Gothic. Even the maps in the back are low quality (like a bad photocopy) and lack keys to explain what the various shadings are supposed to be.

Insofar as my research has gone, the only book on the Goths that I can recommend is Peter Heather's "Goths in the Fourth Century" on Liverpool University Press, now sadly out of print. Interestingly, it points out a number of misreadings of contemporary texts that lead Wolfram to the wrong conclusions. Get this man an editor!

When I first started to read this book I was sure I would not get beyond a few pages as it was extremely difficult reading. But because the Goths held an important position in European history I stuck with it even though it was difficult. The biggest help I got in understanding Wolfram's approach though was through other reviews on the Amazon website as I, like many other people who read history for fun rather than for more serious endeavors, thought of the Goths as just one group of people or at best two (Ostrogoth and Visigoth). Wolfram's portrayal of them as being of many (and possibly unknown) origins while difficult to comprehend makes sense once the reader understands his approach. I am now re-reading the book with my eye on dissecting each point rather than trying to read the book as a whole. It is making it much easier reading.

Over 50% of this book is bibliography. Despite the title, it is not written in a history book format. The books exams in deep detail many facits of the Goths i.e. the first chapter exams the meaning of the word "gens." Reading this book is hard work and a challenge. It is difficult to put the facts, as layed out by the author, in a historical time-line.

I really have to wonder if previous reviewers have actually read this.

Wolfram does not base his argument on linguistics (though his are fine - I checked) or on archaeology (which he clearly states is an unreliable guide). What he does do is make an incredibly exhaustive, cross-referenced study of all of the available sources and use that to write an ethnographic history of the ever-shifting and recombining peoples, Germanic and non-Germanic, who were called the "Goths." That history he then uses to illuminate and make sense of the historical record. As he does this, Wolfram also effectively silences the old "racialist" histories that have made this subject so hard to deal with for so long.

This is very tough going because of the dense writing (translated academic German can be a horror to wade though) and the extreme detail. And, yes, the reproduction of the maps is pretty terrible. It is still, however, one of the best histories I have read, period, and will likely be a source for study and a springboard for my own research for years to come. I'd recommend not dismissing it, especially when that dismissal is itself neither thoughtful nor accurate.

This book illuminates and traces the history of the Goths from their time outside the Roman Empire in the third century A.D. until the Roman war against the Ostrogoths, which divided them into ultimate extinction. The reader gains an understanding about the Goth's formidable military power, which included quick flanking maneuvers, and large contingents of cavalry. To make the book more interesting, the author notes that religious differences added to the animosity between the Romans and Goths. Additionally, the writer recognizes the Gothic barbarian invasions against the Romans, a contributing factor to the fall of the Roman Empire. While usually a fragmented people, the Gothic lifestyle tended to revolve around wine and women. Especially, an enjoyable part of the book pertained to the way the author integrated the Goths with the Hunnish and Frankish peoples. Although a readable book, the prose does get monotonous after awhile. Overall, the author provides an excellent book for someone interested in Gothic or Roman history.