The Restoration of Rome: Barbarian Popes and Imperial Pretenders by Peter Heather, 414 pages
Having already covered the decline of the Roman Empire (The Fall of the Roman Empire) and the peoples that filled its wake (Empires and Barbarians),
in this book Heather focuses on three attempts to reestablish the
western Empire - Theodoric and Justinian in the sixth century, and
Charlemagne in the ninth.
Heather is more conversational in this book than in Empires and Barbarians, which is sometimes a strength (comparing succession rules amongst the Goths to The Godfather)
and sometimes not (claiming that Theodoric's empire was
"totalitarian"). In fact, the book is rough all around, with text
problems (a "cessation" of territory) and graphic problems (on one page
the map and the map key disagree). This is especially odd since this
book was published by Oxford University Press, not known for
sloppiness. Worse, Heather is not in his element when discussing Church
history
(that the "congregations of the early Church had assumed they all
believed approximately the same things" would have come as a surprise to
the foes of Marcion, Montanus, and Paul of Samosata, not to mention all
the gnostic gurus).
Despite this, The Restoration of Rome
is a fine book. The narrative is strong, with enough detail to support
the author's interpretations without boring the lay reader. The memory
of the Roman Empire has both inspired and haunted Europeans for two
millennia - this is an excellent account of the first five centuries of
the dream.
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