Martin's Booklog

The Later Roman Empire — Averil Cameron

Published on July 13, 2008

Cover of The Later Roman Empire

The Later Roman Empire
Averil Cameron
238 pages including index
published in 1993

As you may have noticed if you’re a regular reader of my booklog, is that I’ve developed a mild obsession with Late Antiquity and the Roman Empire, fueled by the two excellent books I got out of the library last year, Peter Heather’s The Fall of the Roman Empire and Bryan Ward-Perkins’ The Fall of Rome. Before that I’d only read about Rome in a few history lessons at school, a couple of popular history books for kids and a shedload of Asterix comics, all of which emphasised the early days of Rome, up until Caesar and Augustus, with perhaps a bit of Nero thrown in. Everything after the first century CE was largely ignored or at best only mentioned briefly; the later centuries of the Roman Empire are seen as an afterthought, a long slide into barbarism ala Edward Gibbon.

Yet if you start reading more academic treatments of Roman history, you soon discover that this view has long been abandonded, ever since the publication of Peter Brown’s The World of Late antiquity in 1971. That was the first popular book to do away with the idea of the dark ages, re-emphasising the continuity between the Christianised empire of the third century CE and the Early Middle Ages, as well as the continuing survival of the Eastern Empire centered around Byzantium, as opposed to the Western Empire’s breakup. Averil Cameron’s The Later Roman Empire is one product of this re-emphasis. Published in 1993 as a volume in the Fontana History of the Ancient World, it shows that the view put forth by Peter Brown has won mainstream acceptance. It is meant as a standard textbook on the late Roman Empire, because none such was yet written in English, as the preface explains.

As a textbook The Later Roman Empire gives a largely chronological overview of the late Roman Empire, starting with the rule of Diocletian in 284 CE and ending with Theodosius, the last emperor to rule both the Western and the Easterns halves of the Roman Empire. This is largely a political and military history, with the emphasis on how the Roman state survived the turmoils of the third century and consolidated itself in the early fourth century and subsequent rise of Byzantium as alternative power centre to Rome. One important aspect of this evolution is the relationship between the Roman state and Christianity, which from the time of Constantine became the official state religion. This had of course an incredible impact on the further development of the empire, both strenghten it, giving it more cohesion, but also leading to dangerous rifts due to the differences in doctrine between the various streams of Christianity in existence then. The last few chapters abandon the chronological approach for a look at the late empire in general, examining its economy, society, culture and the way the army was changing in coming to terms with the threat of barbarian invasion. Again, the role of Christianity is given special attention in these chapters.

What Averil Cameron attempts to show in this book is the continuity of the Roman Empire, both in the problems engulfing it in the third century, as in the ways it survived into the fourth and fifth century CE, and even after it had officially fallen. In sketching her view of the fourth century, Cameron shows both, as she puts it, “the resilience of the Roman imperial systems and the inertia of pre-modern society. If she shows that many of the supposedly unique problems of the late Roman Empire had been present much earlier, she also shows the failure of the Empire to deal with them: it manages to survive and consilidate, but it’s a precarious survival and it only takes a bad run of luck for the western empire to largely be destroyed at the end of the fourth century. At the same time, she continues to emphasise the ways in which major portions of the empire did survive and indeed thrive in the east.

The Later Roman Empire gives a good overview of a period of history I until recently knew little about, but I have to admit it was a little bit too dry for me. This is partially due to the attention paid to Christianity and its response to the changes in the world surrounding it, it’s adaptation to becoming a state religion and the various crisises it underwent during this adaptation. It’s not a subject that interests me greatly to be honest, but it is central to this book. It made for some difficult reading at times, but on the whole this was another interesting look at the late Roman Empire.

The Testament of Andros — James Blish

Published on June 17, 2008

Cover of The Testament of Andros

The Testament of Andros
James Blish
216 pages
published in 1973

James Blish was a science fiction writer of the same generation as Isaac Asimov, the first science fiction writers to have grown up with science fiction as a separate genre, to have become science fiction fans before they became science fiction writers. Blish’s first short stories were written in the early forties, before World War II interfered, so it was only in the fifties that he made his reputation. During that decade he wrote quite a few classic short stories and novels, including the Cities in Flight series, with its vision of New York flying off amongst the stars and A Case of Conscience, in which a young Jesuit wrestles with the question whether or not the aliens he lives amongst posses souls. At the same time, writing under the pseudonym of William Atheling, Jr., he was one of the pioneers in applying literary criticism to science fiction. His later work is less interesting, being spend mostly on writing Star Trek novels.

Though Blish is an important early science fiction writer, one who has written several excellent novels and short stories, I’ve always found myself a bit lukewarm about him. I’ve read the novels I’ve mentioned above, attempted some other, later works of his, as well as most of his better known short stories; they were alright, but no more than that. Part of the trouble I had with him is that he, for a science fiction writer, had quite a conservative pessimistic atttitute towards the future, adhering to a Spenglerian, cyclical view of history, most notably in the Cities in Flight series. I got nothing against a bit of conservatism or pesssimism in my science fiction perse, even if I don’t share it, but Blish’s philosophy is a particularly dreary one.

Mediterranean: Portrait of a Sea — Ernle Bradford

Published on June 2, 2008

Cover of Mediterranean: Portrait of a Sea

Mediterranean: Portrait of a Sea
Ernle Bradford
574 pages including index
published in 1971

I read Ernle Bradford’s book on the 1565 Ottoman siege of Malta, The Great Siege, some four years ago and enjoyed Bradford’s obvious enthusiasm and interest in the subject, though at times he made the siege sound a bit too much like a boy’s adventure. Other people seem to like it too, as not a week goes by without recieving hits on the review of it I did back. Apart from The Great Siege however I’ve never seen any other Ernle Bradford book, until Mediterranean: Portrait of a Sea caught my eye on the Amsterdam library’s shelves two weeks ago. Bradford did a great job with his book on the siege of Malta, so I thought it would be interesting to see how he would do with a slightly bigger subject.

And subjects don’t come much bigger than this: the complete story of the Mediterranean, one of the most important areas in human history, from the earliest beginning to the present day. As the subtitle indicates, Bradford isn’t interested as much in the history of the various countries and empires that have bordered the Mediterranean, as he is in the sea itself. He focuses therefore on the ebb and flow of human exploration of the Mediterranean, on how the traderoutes through it were established and fought over, on the maritine empires that were established on it, on how their domination of the sea led succesive empires to rule the countries surrounding it.

The Year of Our War — Steph Swainston

Published on May 14, 2008

Cover of The Year of Our War

The Year of Our War
Steph Swainston
290 pages
published in 2004

I’ll admit it was the China Miéville blurb on the frontcover that made me pick up this novel. For some reason the Amsterdam library is overstocked with series after series of extruded fantasy product; if it hadn’t been for that quote I wouldn’t have looked twice. Steph Swainston isn’t somebody I had heard of before, or even seen mentioned, which goes to show how big fantasy is these days. The Year of Our War is her first novel and it promises much for the future. Since its publication Swainston has written two more books, both set in the same universe. But if it hadn’t been for that Miéville blurb I never would’ve known about her, so score one for marketing.

If you look at just the barebones plot, The Year of Our War sounds like bog standard fantasy. The Fourlands are threatened by the Insect invasion, a mindless almost unstoppale menace which has already taken over the northern part of the world, with only the Emperor and his Circle of fifty immortals standing in their way, leading the defence against the Insects since God has abandoned the world over 2000 years ago. Jant Shira, the hero and narrator of this story is the youngest of these immortals, a crossbreed of two races, winged but flightless Awian and slender, thin half-wild Rhydanne, the result of which is that he can fly, but he’s the only one in this world. Ever since becoming an immortal he has served as a messenger and it’s as such that he witnesses the disaster that undoes the costly stalemate the Circle has managed to create, when the Awian King, Dunlin Rachiswater dies in an attack on the Insect lands and his weak brother mounts the throne and withdraws his troops from the wall to protect him in his capital.

The Dark Side of Democracy — Michael Mann

Published on May 13, 2008

Cover of The Dark Side of Democracy

The Dark Side of Democracy
Michael Mann
580 pages including index
published in 2005

To be honest I only got this out of the library because its cover and backflap copy make it look like one of those horrid rightwing books that explain in a calm, cultured manner how we should give up democracy for our own good and let our betters govern, because if we do it ourselves it will inexordinately lead to genocide. This however turned out not to be the case. Michael Mann does explain here why genocide and ethnic cleansing is something mostly practises by democracies rather than authoritarian or totalitarian states, but he makes clear it’s only a particular kind of democracy that’s dangerous, and only in certain circumstances. Mann also makes clear that he doesn’t think abandoning democracy is the way to avoid genocides. Instead The Dark Side of Democracy is a honest attempt at explaining how societies get themselves into the danger zone where ethnic based violence happens and how that can swing in full scale, violent ethnic cleansing with genocide as the final stage.

As you might imagine, this is not a very cheerful read, and in fact I became decidedly grumpy during the week I read this, according to my girlfriend. Despite this, I found The Dark Side of democracy to be weirdly exhilarating, in as far as a book on genocide can ever be exhilarating, even mildly optimistic. The most depressing thing about genocide and ethnic cleansing, as reinforced by our collective memory about the Holocaust and the recent histories of Ruanda and Yugoslavia, is the idea that it could happen in any society, in any of our own societies. Genocide isn’t done by faceless savages in places far away and long ago, but by people not that long ago, not that far away, people who looked a lot like you and I. What The Dark Side of Democracy postulates is that this isn’t true, that it only happens in certain circumstances in a certain type of society. Mann attempts to prove this by first defining eight general theses that together provide a generic explanation for why violent ethnic cleansing and genocide happens in a given society, then looks at the historical evidence to see how the theory fits it.