Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000 Hardcover – September 15, 2005

Fantastic and in-depth analysis. Great for reading or research.

Thoughtful and masterfully researched. A really beautiful effort that contextualizes social and political trends emerging after the collapse of the Roman Empire.

Julia M H Smith, unfortunately, has taken her position as historian a bit too far here. If you desire an honest unbiased truth about the history of Europe after the Fall of Rome, I suggest you look elsewhere. It is extremely clear from her writing that she not only feels that women are much more important than men... which is rediculous as we are of equal importance to nature, but, also that the Christian religion is the root of all evil. It is unfortunate that in the year 2017 we are not able to be a bit more objective. The only reason I bought this book was for a course. Usually I am delightfully surprised at the quality I find in such books... this one, not even close. Hopefully, my review spares someone from buying such a liberal and biased account of the history of Europe. This is truly an unreliable account, historically speaking. As historians we are tasked with presenting the facts with as little opinion as possible. If only Ms. Smith had paid attention to this portion of her schooling.

I am taking a course in Medieval Europe. This book really added to my general knowledge.

I bought this book hoping to expand my understanding of the post Roman period. Unfortunately I learned a great deal more about the author then I did about post Roman Europe. She is like many feminist "scholars", more interesting in validating her own sterotypical ideas, than in understanding her subject matter. She also falls into the undergraduate writing trap, of using vocabulary which is unnecessarily filled with jargon and obscure words.

This book is not divided into chronological chapters but into thematic chapters, treating each particular aspect of "culture" as she sees it once and for all at one place in the book, much like Norman Davis did in his delightful history of Poland, "Heart of Europe".
There are four major sections, each with two chapters. I: Fundamentals, with the chapters Speaking and writing and Living and dying. II: Affinities, divided into Friends and relations, and Men and women. III: Resources, divided into Labour and lordship, and Getting and giving. IV: Ideologies, divided into Kingship and Christianity and Rome and the peoples of Europe. There follow an Epilogue on pp 293-297, and Notes on pp 298-313 which gives the sources for works quoted. The section Further Reading, occupying pp 314-343 is actually a so called commented bibliography, which I found valuable since it puts the reading list into a historiographic perspective and aids in picking out books that will interest me during further studies.
The topic of the book being Europe in the years 500-1000 AD, which earlier used to be referred to as The Dark Ages, I found it positive, for instance, that she does away with the concept of Barbarians (as opposed to supposedly "civilised" Romans) in a way which Peter Heather (who insists that there was indeed a Fall of the Roman empire, and of civilisation with it) would probably find blasphemous. She shows convincingly that the Europe of AD 1000 was very different from that of AD 500, so obviously a lot of things happened in terms of development within European societies, even during supposedly Dark Ages. No signs of stagnation there !
I noted some negatives. The lack of illustrations is rather unusual for a Cultural History. In fact, the only photo inside the book is the frontispiece (in b/w ! ), showing a Scottish decorated sarcophagus (whose importance is interpreted extensively on pp 7-9), plus there are two colour images on the front wrapper: the inside back flap shows a photo of the author. To give food not just for your thought but for your eyes you must clearly look elsewhere: Check out the (late) mediaeval world in pictures as offered by the Duke of Berry (France), in his commissioned work of exquisite miniatures in "Les très riches heures du duc de Berry" (alternatively called Les très belles heures in some editions; the Germans call this type of books a Stundenbuch, so you could search for all three synonyms to get your hand on copies of such literature). I wish I knew about some similar work covering the period of Miss Smith's book (AD 500-1000) but I don't. If someone out there knows, would you please post an update on this site ! Another feature is heavy-footed language at places, and long sentences (4-5 lines) are usual. But again, the intended readers of a work such as this will be indulgent towards such features.
As you may guess from the above, this is not some lavish coffee-table publication but a high-brow book which gives the reader much food for thought, serving as your companion for the long haul, to argue and disagree with at times. I come away from the first reading with a sense of deep satisfaction, and a wish to continue my studies of Mediaeval Culture.
Not being a professional historian myself I hesitate to mark this work: I might be unfair, but felt I should deduct one star from the maximum due to the slight deficiencies noted. But it might very well be regarded a 5-star work given its own premises, I guess.

This book gave good overview of the era - I recommend to read it for everybody who are interested what kind of changes took place during the times when Europe was changed by goths, huns and other people who wanted to find a new place to live.
Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000