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Title: History of the Goths by Herwig Wolfram, Thomas J. Dunlap ISBN: 0-520-06983-8 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: March, 1990 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.62 (8 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: In-Depth, Challenging, & Creatively Explored Topic
Comment: Wolfram's "The History of the Goths" is a work deserving of high praise. If you want a book to give you an insightful, well-researched, & thoughtful glance at the Goths, then this is the one you'd want. It explores popular "myths" about the Goths from the Romantic era until the early- to mid-twentieth century. From there, we dive into a deep Ocean of ancient & medieval history, the written sources, language, archaeology, & many intriguing theories about the Goths - such as the question of their origins & their homelands, traces of their oral literature found among written sources from Antiquity until the Middle Ages... & thoughtful interpretations of "conventional" history, before & after the "fall" of the Roman Empire.
The Goths are one of those peoples from whom legends were made; sadly through a process of historical fate, & grave misrepresentation, the Goths are all but forgotten to contemporary popular knowledge. This book tries successfully to understand the world & culture of an ancient people so important to European history. If one has an inquiring mind, this book is no difficult read at all, - & for this motivation, it's a worthwhile investment.
Rating: 5
Summary: Ian Myles Slater on: A Close Look at a Problem
Comment: Understanding the Goths and their role in history used to be simple. On the one hand, you could go along with Alexander Pope in his "Essay on Criticism," and declare of the fall of Rome, "A second deluge learning thus o'errun, / And the monks finished what the Goths begun" (which is particularly pointed, given that Pope himself was a Catholic).
On the other hand, you could praise them. The reasons for favoring the Goths were somewhat diverse. The Victorian socialist and poet (and designer and fantasy novelist, etc.) William Morris portrayed them as wonderful examples of folk-solidarity against the corruption and imperialism of Rome. In Germany, at the same time, historians announced that they were convinced that the Goths demonstrated how the Germanic Race brought Freedom back into the world -- leading Nietzsche to ask the difference between such a conviction and an ordinary lie. (He also expressed relief that the ancient Germans, whose inferior blood had helped destroy the Roman Empire through intermarriage, were NOT ancestors of the modern Germans.) In America, broad-minded scholars, brought up on the doctrine of Anglo-Saxon Liberty (and the Norman Yoke), rushed to recognize the continental Goths as honorary Anglo-Saxons, extending a privileged status to at least some Europeans.
All of these views depended on the assumption that the name Goth (and its variants) in ancient and early medieval texts always meant the same thing, and that the Ostrogoths and Visigoths were simply branches of the same original tribe -- "tribe" too being a term taken for granted. This made things simple for archeologists; dig up something of about the right age in a place where "Goths" were supposed to have been living, and you know it was "Gothic." Find something similar someplace else, and you had discovered Goths.
Herwig Wolfram, reviewing another century of scholarship, shows that there are problems with every one of these assumptions (including Pope's). Even leaving aside the problem of the whole idea of a "tribe" as a recognizable entity, ancient sources on the Goths and their divisions are not easy to understand. Entirely different population groups sometimes seem to have acquired the label, only to shed it again. Efforts to find a principle of continuity in royal dynasties follow the propaganda of self-promoted kings. And, of course, a whole body of writing from the middle of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth is interwoven with theories of racial superiority.
None of this makes for easy reading, or straightforward narrative. Instead, we get the clearing away of misconceptions, and an effort to evaluate competing modern theories. This is a really valuable book for anyone seriously interested in the problems associated with the later Roman Empire and the emergence of Barbarian Kingdoms in Italy and Spain. If you want a simple story, you will have to take your chances elsewhere.
Rating: 1
Summary: Simply aweful...
Comment: This is by far the worst book on the Goths I have found to date. While I will happily grant that this is a difficult subject about which to write, given the dearth of written history from the era and region, Wolfram takes wild stabs at the truth using etymological evidence that no linguist would ever consider legitimate. Wolfram's considerable bibliography has a number of questionable sources and his critiques of competing scholars (hidden in the footnotes) are laughable. Most of his cultural details are pure guesswork based on shady linguistics and archaeology which has never really been identified as Gothic. Even the maps in the back are low quality (like a bad photocopy) and lack keys to explain what the various shadings are supposed to be.
Insofar as my research has gone, the only book on the Goths that I can recommend is Peter Heather's "Goths in the Fourth Century" on Liverpool University Press, now sadly out of print. Interestingly, it points out a number of misreadings of contemporary texts that lead Wolfram to the wrong conclusions. Get this man an editor!
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Title: Invasion of Europe by the Barbarians by J. B. Bury, F. J. C. Hearnshaw ISBN: 0393003884 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: August, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Goths by Peter Heather ISBN: 0631209328 Publisher: Blackwell Publishers Pub. Date: April, 1998 List Price(USD): $30.95 |
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Title: A History of the Ostrogoths by Thomas S. Burns ISBN: 0253206006 Publisher: Indiana University Press Pub. Date: February, 1991 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Huns (Peoples of Europe Series) by E. A. Thompson, Peter Heather ISBN: 0631214437 Publisher: Blackwell Publishers Pub. Date: April, 1999 List Price(USD): $28.95 |
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Title: A History of the Vikings by Gwyn Jones ISBN: 0192801341 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: May, 2001 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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