The Inheritance of Rome

Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000

By: Chris Wickham

Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart

Prizewinning historian Chris Wickham defies the conventional view of the Dark Ages in European history with a work of remarkable scope and rigorous yet accessible scholarship. Drawing on a wealth of new material and featuring a thoughtful synthesis of historical and archaeological approaches, Wickham argues that these centuries were critical in the formulation of European identity. Far from being a middle period between more significant epochs, this age has much to tell us in its own right about the progress of culture and the development of political thought.

Sweeping in its breadth, Wickham's incisive history focuses on a world still profoundly shaped by Rome, which encompassed the remarkable Byzantine, Carolingian, and Ottonian empires, and peoples ranging from Goths, Franks, and Vandals to Arabs, Anglo-Saxons, and Vikings.

Digging deep into each culture, Wickham constructs a vivid portrait of a vast and varied world stretching from Ireland to Constantinople, the Baltic to the Mediterranean. The Inheritance of Rome brilliantly presents a fresh understanding of the crucible in which Europe would ultimately be created.

©2009 Chris Wickham (P)2018 Tantor

A Magisterial Survey

Every so often, you read a work of history in which the author manages to combine breadth and depth sufficiently successfully that you're not sure whether you've read a survey or a detailed analysis. Chris Wickham's "The Inheritance of Rome" is one such book. Wickham covers a temporal span of 600 years and a geographic span from Iberia to Iran, and from Egypt to England. His basic thesis -- that the early Middle Ages were neither a complete break from the Roman world nor a seamless transition from it, but rather a sort of cracked mirror of the Western Empire, mimicking many of its aspects in smaller, more fragmented form -- is given enough support to see the theme across various times and places. At the same time, however, he is quick to point out circumstances where the data don't fit the mold, and to make clear that it is the mold, not the data, which must give way. Particularly interesting is his analysis of the later part of this period, where the effects of the collapse of Abbasid and, more particularly, Carolingian power in some ways recapitulated, in smaller form, the effects of Roman decline. A couple of nits: sometimes, Wickham's neo-Marxist lens seems too heavy handed. There are a few too many references to the exploitation of the peasants by the aristocrats; more significantly (given that such exploitation did in fact occur), it is not until the Conclusion that he really undertakes to explain *why* this might happened, rather than presenting it as a historical inevitability. Also, the initial parts of the book, covering the 5th, 6th, and 7th centuries, come across as rather fragmentary -- here they did this, there they did that -- but that is almost certainly a consequence of the equally fragmentary nature of the evidence. These are quibbles.

The narration, by James Cameron Stewart, is also excellent. His diction is clear, his pronunciations consistent (not an easy thing with so many places and names in so many languages). He conveys the sense of the text, as well as its content, something not all narrators do successfully. An amusing tic: Audiobooks are of course recorded in small sections. Stewart tends to speak both faster and at a rising pitch as a section goes on. When he picks up with what is obviously the next block of recording, the speed and pitch revert to baseline.

Great book

I really liked how comprehensive this book is. You see lots of different perspectives, with due care taken to not generalize nor use anachronisms (e. g. Not using modern sensibilities to judge social hierarchy of the period).

The bad side is that it assumes some previous knowledge: Any reader looking for an introduction to the period will feel a bit lost after the author casually mentions Charles the Bald, Ottonians, Basel II and many others more famous figures as if their context is known. Maybe that's true if you went to school in Europe - I doubt it's true elsewhere.

Dry facts read without feeling

Gave up after a couple hours because it was mostly a litany of names and places read in a purely informational tone. Disappointing because I'm fascinated by this time period.Maybe it gets better as it goes along.

Marvelous and Staggered

I say in preface that this volume is instrumental to and understanding of medieval Europe, and has filled in a lot of gaps in my knowledge of the era. I’m extremely grateful to the author and glad for the read.

Be ready to adjust yourself to the broken cadence and style of the read. It can prove distracting, and breaks up the flow of information. You may require, as I did, several listens.

In depth well defended and well defined in terms of scale. Successful in what it set out to do.

This reader has a particularly choppy style which always makes the books he reads less of a fluid listen than say Derek Perkins. In particular with the plethora of names and locations his rhythm takes away from this book.

Read, don’t listen

This book is long and dense and rather dull, and the narrator’s almost total lack of inflection makes it even duller. Nevertheless, I learned a lot about the era formerly known as the Dark Ages, and so I liked it overall.

Good Story

Makes use of limited sources in creative ways to make up for a lack of primary sources and evidence in a period that is not well known.

Basically just kings and battles for 600 years

This is all style history writing that gives you very little information about what happens below the level of royalty and aristocracy. This guy never heard of heard of Braudel. It really got tedious, especially his obsession with telling the listener what year this or that emperor, king or other potentate died. Pretty boring history of just political behavior and nothing about social life, technology and what life was really like during this period, it really wasn’t the dark ages, but this book makes it seem like it was.

Detailed History of the Early Roman Centuries

The book is comprehensive but goes into almost too much detail about the period. The narrator is precise but is very pedantic in tenor and droning in his tone.

Impressive and extensive

This is a meticulously researched work. It weaves together diverse information from numerous sources and fields of study. It covers vastly different regions, including the Eastern Empire, the Arabic world and various areas of Europe.

Wickham describes the influences of Imperial Rome, particularly the Western Empire, on successor entities and explores both the continuities and discontinuities in such successor states and other polities. He also chronicles changes over six centuries within and among such entities.

Wickham uses both literary and archeological sources. He relies, much more heavily, however, on literary sources. Because of the generally low level of literacy in the period, therefore, there is more information available on, and consequently discussion about, aristocratic and ecclesiastical hierarchies, and much less on the peasantry, even though they constituted the vast majority of the population.

Wickham does describe the worsening conditions of the peasantry over the period covered, but there is only a brief discussion of the effect of the fall of the Western Empire on the peasantry.

Again by virtue of the heavy reliance on literary sources, the book focuses on political and social developments in the period. Other than the analyses of aristocratic and ecclesiastical literature, however, there is limited discussion of cultural developments. The only visual art covered is architecture and the accompanying building decorations.

There is no discussion of other aspects of culture, which is traditionally an aristocratic preserve. The very fact that there were no significant contributions to such arts as music, painting, drama or fiction, itself represents a significant break from the Imperial Roman tradition and would have been worthy of discussion.