Product Description

At the start of the first millennium AD, southern and western Europe formed part of the Mediterranean-based Roman Empire, the largest state western Eurasia has ever known, and was set firmly on a trajectory towards towns, writing, mosaics, and central heating. Central, northern and eastern Europe was home to subsistence farmers, living in wooden houses with mud floors, whose largest political units weighed in at no more than a few thousand people. By the year 1000, Mediterranean domination of the European landscape had been destroyed. Instead of one huge Empire facing loosely organised subsistence farmers, Europe – from the Atlantic almost to the Urals – was home to an interacting commonwealth of Christian states, many of which are still with us today . This book tells the story of the transformations which changed western Eurasia forever: of the birth of Europe itself.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15398 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 734 pages

Review
`an awesomely ambitious work: an attempt, in the heroic tradition of Pirenne, to make sense of nothing less than the reshaping of antiquity, and the origins of modern Europe...Heather is a wonderfully fluent writer, with a consistent ability to grab hold of his reader's attention....The result is a book which richly merits reading by those interested in the future of Europe as well as its past.'
--BBC History Magazine

`Peter Heather is a Big Historian...his prose is unfailingly clear and bright, and he laces it with enough nutty summaries and moments of dramatic action to cheer the reader along.
--Tribune

About the Author

Peter Heather is currently a Fellow of Medieval History at Worcester College, Oxford, having previously taught at University College, London and Yale University. He is the author of the acclaimed and bestselling Fall of the Roman Empire also published by Pan Macmillan.

Customer Reviews

The Newtonian Third Law of Empires
Densely pack and well argued, this sequel to Peter Heather's "The Fall of the Roman Empire" is a new classic. Using the latest composite information from historical texts and archaeological finds, Heather develops the "why" of the early development of Europe. It is liberally sprinkled with humorous turns of phrase when the reader least expects them. A chapter title of "Huns on the Run" gives some idea of the smiles that Heather can provoke. His attention to detail does not detract from his synthesis of grand themes in the migratory period. The single criticism I could place on the book is that the (very important) supporting map graphics are not found within the text where they are referenced but in a single section at the back of the book. For an explanation of the "Third Law of Empires", you will have to read the book. Highly recommended.

an essential addition to your history collection
Peter Heather has spent decades developing his expertise concerning a little-understood period of European history: the several centuries during which the Roman Empire and its civilization were transformed into a new political and cultural entity. Despite the many difficulties of dealing with fragmented and unreliable sources, the author has managed to create an engrossing narrative that is easy for a lay reader to follow, and never dull. Anyone interested in the history of Europe of any period should read this book.

Brilliant!
A thoughroughly enjoyable book on a difficult subject. It offers new and surprising insight into the birth of Europe based on recent archaeological evidence and the few and rather reticent written primary sources available. What marks this book as different is Heather's fresh approach to both.