The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000 (The Penguin History of Europe) Kindle Edition

i was not expecting such a well written history of "the Dark Ages" after reading so many of the negative reviews. I will admit it takes your full attention and is not a "pop history" as many "history books" are these days. It is written in a very detailed, scholarly style , although I don't agree that the author was using overly complex sentence structures or words. If you are truly interested in early middle age period, this is a good book to study, albeit you would do good to have some basic early middle age history knowledge prior to reading this book (as then it won't seem like the author is "just reading a dictionary or phone book"). If you know the basic outline and names of the period, it will still require your concentration to get the most out of it. It seems the author has a vast array of knowledge of the period and tries to fit as much in as possible, which I very much like, and the author is qualified to write such a book (as is a professor of this period of history at Oxford University)

The Inheritance of Rome by Chris Wickham is the second book in the series the Penguin History of Europe, following The Birth of Classical Europe. Like the earlier book, The Inheritance of Rome is more concerned with the uses the people of the era made of their understanding of the past than with giving a straightforward chronology of the era. In other words, this book deals with the inheritance the Roman Empire bequeathed to the peoples living in the centuries after its collapse in the West. These peoples, whether of the post Roman kingdoms of Western Europe, the Roman remnant of the Byzantine Empire in the East, or the Islamic invaders made differing uses of the institutions and cultural norms left behind by the Romans, each society adapting Roman ways to their particular needs.
The Inheritance of Rome covers the centuries between 400 and 1000. While these endpoints may seem somewhat arbitrary, in neither case do they indicate any sort of sharp division, they nevertheless are appropriate as the endpoints for the transformation of Europe from a continent dominated by a centralized empire to the decentralized, feudal Europe of the Central Middle Ages. At the beginning of this period, the Roman Empire was still the same empire that had existed for centuries. No one could have guessed that the western half of the empire would soon be overrun by invaders within 80 years would be gone. For centuries afterwards, no one quite believed that the Roman Empire had actually passed away and much of the history of the Early Middle Ages is the history of trying to restore the Empire, culminating in the great Carolingian project.
The Carolingians very consciously made use of the rhetoric of restoration in their policies. They sought to create a universal Christian Empire and were, at least in theory, concerned with the souls of their subjects as much as their lives. The project failed in the end when the Carolingian dynasty died out. The Ottonians tried to continue this legacy, but Europe, under attack from Vikings, Arabs, and others was less inclined to see itself as a whole towards the end of this period. In fact, starting in the middle tenth century, we can begin to speak of the modern nations of Europe, France, Germany, etc. Europe was beginning to grow beyond the inheritance of Rome.
The period covered in this book is often referred to as the Dark Ages. Wickham deals with this question through his book. On the one hand, the era was not nearly as dark as is sometimes supposed. There were some strong continuities between the society and institutions of the Roman Empire and the post-Roman polities that succeeded it. The Germans invaders did not simply sweep away Roman institutions and customs, but were rather, eager to adopt Romans ways. On the other hand, Wickham describes a clear simplification and localization of the economies of the entire region, particularly in the centuries of the worst crises, about 500-700. There was a step backwards for much of the region for which the reasons are not entirely known.
The Inheritance of Rome is an excellent way to learn about an interesting and important period of our past.

Reading this book is like being on a frenetically-driven tour bus with the guide breathlessly dropping the names of the sights as you whiz past. The writing is bloodless, unable to spark the imagination, which is unfortunate for such a mysterious and romantic period of history. I retained very little, and feel compelled to find a better read on this subject.

The period 400-1000 is a blank spot in the minds of most people, even for those who know a great deal about Rome and medieval Europe. What we do tend to know are a handful of decontextualized names (e.g. Charlemagne) and some stock images of bearded men in leather armor killing each other. Wickham, then, was faced with a formidable task: not just to introduce his readers to the Ostrogoths, the Merovingian kingdom, etc., but also to disabuse us of popularly held notions, like the precipitous fall of Rome in 476 or the discontinuities between Rome and its 'barbarian' successor states.

It's for this reason that I strongly disagree with the reviews complaining that this book has too many details, and should not have been marketed to a general audience. The many details are not the intended "takeaway" of this book. Rather, Wickham presents us with such rich anecdotes so that long after the names and events vanish from memory, readers will be left with a deep (and accurate) feel for post-Roman culture, society, and government. Given how shallow (and inaccurate) my feel for post-Roman Europe was before reading Wickham's book, I consider his book extremely effective.

On the dust jacket, a reviewer describes Wickham's writing as "pointillist." I think this description is apt. As with pointillist paintings, this work's intent can only be comprehended after you take a step back from the anecdotes. Wickham's prose is only difficult if you get too worried about remembering that Sidonius Apollinaris was so-and-so's son-in-law, lived in Clermont in the 5th century, etc. General readers need not worry about the details - Just keep on reading, and be confident that you will finish the book with a different understanding of 400-1000 AD than when you started.