Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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48 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Emperor and a Bacterium Rewrite History, June 12, 2007
Great men have changed the world. And so have microbes. And changes fifteen hundred years ago, among ancient societies that are irretrievably lost except to scholars, created contingencies that have made our world what it is, with no way possible to conceive all the "what ifs" that have thereby fallen out to give our current political, religious, and social situation. If you are like me, the history of the sixth century Mediterranean, especially Constantinople, is one vague gray area, but it doesn't have to stay that way. _Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe_ (Viking) is a strange book in many ways. It is not written by an academic with long publishing credentials behind him. William Rosen has publishing credentials, but they are in the business of publishing, where he has been a senior executive. This is his first book as author, and it shows all the enthusiasm of a hobbyist eager to let others know just how interesting is the subject of his particular fascination. It is crammed with religious, military, and political history, along with large doses of epidemiology and bacteriology (to help explain how bubonic plague works) as well as an addendum of entomology (to help explain the equally history-making silkworm). Not every hobbyist could make his obsession interesting, but Rosen's book swarms with so many facts that it is always surprising and never dull.
The backbone of the book is a biography of the Emperor Justinian himself. He was born in a Balkan hill town in 482 CE, but an uncle, a general in the imperial guard, adopted him, took him to Constantinople, and got him an education. Justinian was a hard worker, productive to the point of robbing himself of sleep. He did not pay much attention to his appearance, and he tended to asceticism. He stuck around Constantinople to work, and had little interest in visiting his military conquests. He had a considerable ego, revealed in his own writings, and little respect for his predecessors or especially for anyone whom he considered an enemy of the church. Justinian was shrewd in his choice of advisors, and never chose better than his chief general Belisarius, who conquered Vandals in Africa and Ostrogoths in Italy, as well as a late glory in defending Constantinople against the Huns. For all his accomplishments, Justinian could not overcome the devastation caused by the rat, the flea, and the bacterium _Yersinia pseudotuberculosis_. Rosen explains how the bacterium was a relatively harmless type, perhaps causing a mild flu, but then it harnessed the flea as a means of transportation, and while evolving to turn off the defenses of the flea, it became deadly to humans. It was recorded in 540 in the Nile delta, and because this was the grain source for Constantinople, the germs in the fleas on the rats in the ships soon were causing a plague within the city. At least 25 million people were killed in the empire. Justinian himself was infected, but was one of the lucky ones whose immune system somehow fought off the illness; other residents of Constantinople were dying off at the rate of maybe 5,000 a day during the same time, overfilling the hospitals and then the cemeteries. The plague affected tax revenues, and handed new opportunities to the enemies of the Empire. It possibly prevented Justinian's armies from reforming the old Roman Empire entirely, and it enabled a subsequent Arabic expansion and the growth of Islam.
It is safe to say that our world would be quite different if the Plague of Justinian had never happened. Rosen knows that looking at the complicated sixth century through the lens of one particular bacteriological eruption is an oversimplification, and that the plague cannot be the single cause of Rome's decline, the birth of European states, or the rise of Islam. The effects, however, were vast and often surprising; the plague had disproportionate effects, for instance, on those in monasteries due to the close living quarters, and also especially afflicted those upon ships so that there was a direct effect on naval campaigns. Looked at another way, the pandemic caused a labor shortage, which sparked an agricultural revolution, which caused increased population and power for European states. Rosen's book is valuable for the account of the history and epidemiology of a distant time, but also for contemplation of contingency on a world-wide scale.
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30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The flea that changed history, May 10, 2007
A combination of biography, sweeping historical drama, vivid eyewitness accounts, geopolitical intrigue, and epidemiological detective story, "Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe" argues that Yersinia pestis, the bacterium responsible for bubonic plague, was the major force that led to the decline of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire of late antiquity and the subsequent rise of medieval Europe.
Tracing the origins of "Justinian's plague" to the fairly benign bacterium Yersinia pseudotuberculosis in East Africa, William Rosen describes how the bacterium, in adapting to a new host, the flea, became far more virulent and mobile. The Mediterranean black rat carried the flea and the plague from Africa aboard ships to port cities all along the eastern Mediterranean and eventually to Constantinople, the capital of the empire, where it killed more than a third of the population.
"Justinian's Flea" also tells of the historical figures whose lives were changed by the plague, including and especially the Emperor Justinian, who hoped to rebuild the former glory of the Roman Empire but could not foresee that his greatest obstacle would be a flea. He was born in a small village in the Balkans and rose to power through family connections and sheer talent, promoting others with merit and even marrying a professional courtesan who went on to become his confidante and a powerful woman in her own right.
Rosen makes excellent use of contemporary accounts to describe not only the immediate effects of the plague, but the far-reaching ones as well, ranging across the empire and beyond, to China and Arabia. But rather than simply describe events, Rosen explains them within the context of our current knowledge of medicine, science, and technology, and with the awareness of the eventual political and social outcomes we know today.
"Justinian's Flea" shows with extensive learning and research, disguised as a compelling narrative, how one of the great turning points in history was decided not by man but by a flea.
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35 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great Expectations Unevenly Met, September 3, 2007
I won't repeat the history that many reviewers cover so well. And I would recommend the book with some reservations. You're not educated without more understanding of this time period. My husand and I both read and discussed it at legth, so it did provoke thinking and conversation.
Now for the downside. The author is a pedant who needed an aggressive editor. To be fair, he's trying to lay the groundwork to cover a lot of disparate pieces that come together eventually. It might have been more successful had he summarized the story upfront to give the reader a roadmap through the book.
He also gets bogged down in minutae. While his premise about the arrival of the plague requires some detail to appreciate the subleties, he goes overboard with information that will be of interest to few readers.
This gave me the impression the author wants the reader to see his erudition more than the story. Too bad. It's a good piece of history. Seems to be well researched. He uncovered a lot of sources I was not familiar with. It fills a gap - a missing link in this part of history. And it does have a lot of interesting pieces of information. But I kept thinking there must be better works on this.
5 stars for excellent research; 3 for organization; 2 for continuity.
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