History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)

Book Description

Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.

Customer Reviews:

Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03

Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.

Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19

Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09

There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.

For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

Very Interesting.......2007-03-07

It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.

History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10

Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.

I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.

Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.

Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.

I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.

This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.

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Fantastic Book
To Many Liberties With History
Tales of Caesar's Young Adulthood
Conquering all others...
I Loved It!

The Death of Kings (Emperor, Book 2)
Conn Iggulden
Manufacturer: Dell
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0440240956
Release Date: 2005-01-25

Book Description

The acclaimed author of Emperor: The Gates of Rome returns to the extraordinary life of Julius Caesar in a new novel that takes us further down the path to glory . . . as Caesar comes into his own as a man, warrior, senator, husband, and leader.

In a sparsely settles region of North Africa, a band of disheveled soldiers turn their eyes toward one man among them: their leader, Julius Caesar. The soldiers are Roman legionaries. And their quarry is a band of pirates who dared to kidnap Julius Caesar for ransom. Now, as Caesar exacts his revenge and builds a legend far from Rome, his friend Marcus Brutus is fighting battles of another sort, rising to power in the wake of the assassination of a dictator. Once Brutus and Caesar were as close as brothers, devoted to the same ideals and attracted to the same forbidden women. Now they will be united again by a shock wave from the north, where a gladiator named Spartacus is building an army of seventy thousand slaves—to fight a cataclysmic battle against Rome itself.

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"Brilliant... stunning," raved the Los Angeles Times about Conn Iggulden's first novel, Emperor: The Gates of Rome. "Iggulden is a grand storyteller," declared USA Today. Now Iggulden returns to the landscape of ancient Rome and the life of Julius Caesar in a new novel filled with all the sumptuous storytelling that distinguished his first book. Sweeping from the windswept, pirate-ruled seas to the stifling heat of the Roman senate, Iggulden takes us further down the path to glory as Julius Caesar comes into his own as a man, warrior, senator, husband, leader.

In a sweltering, sparsely settled region of North Africa, a band of disheveled soldiers turn their eyes toward one man among them. Ragged, dirty, and half starved, the men will follow their leader into the mad, glorious fight for honor and revenge that only he wants to fight. Their leader is named Julius Caesar. The soldiers are Roman legionaries. And their quarry is a band of pirates who made the mistake of seizing Julius Caesar—and holding him for ransom. Now, to get his revenge, Caesar will turn peasants into soldiers, building a shipborne fighting force that will not only decimate a pirate fleet but will dominate the Mediterranean, earning him the coveted title Military Tribune of Rome.

While Caesar builds a legend far from Rome, his friend Gaius Brutus is fighting battles of another sort, rising to power in the wake of the shocking assassination of a dictator. Once Brutus and Caesar were as close as brothers, both devoted to the same ideals and attracted to the same forbidden woman. Now, when Caesar returns—with the winds of glory at his back—they will find themselves at odds. For each has built an army of elite warriors—Caesar's forged in far-flung battles, Brutus' from Rome's political killing fields. But in an era when men die for their treachery and their allegiances, the two men will soon be united by a shock wave from the north. There, a gladiator named Spartacus is gathering strength, building an army of seventy thousand desperate slaves—to fight a cataclysmic battle against Rome itself.

Filled with unforgettable images—from the death throes of a king to the birth of Caesar's child, from the bloody battlefields of Greece to the silent passion of lovers—Emperor: The Death of Kings is an astounding work, a stunning blend of vibrant history and thrilling fiction.

Customer Reviews:

Fantastic Book.......2007-09-03

The entire series 'Emperor',including 'The Death of Kings',are very exciting and well-written.It's true that Iggulden made many changes from the original story but I believe the most important thing is to understand the character of Julius Caesar and of Marcus Brutus,and how life was at the time.The author takes us close to the characters and the story is so vivid that you can't stop reading..For me,the most interesting thing in the series is the relationship of the two friends and how they changed during the years.

To Many Liberties With History.......2007-05-15

There are so many better books in this genre.

While one must suspend belief with much of the dialogue put into the mouths of the great men of history, it is unforgivable how the author changes well documented important events.

Cato is killed during the Spartacus rebellion by Pompey? No he lived for many years more, died in Africa and should be a MAJOR character in the next books in the series - except the author has decided to kill him off. Ridiculous.

Caesar personally kills Mithridates during a great battle the same year he escaped from pirates??? No such thing happened.

There are many other major changes in History that make this mediocre book and series a must avoid.

Tales of Caesar's Young Adulthood.......2006-12-22

My interest in Julius Caesar & ancient Rome was piqued by viewing HBO's Rome. I really enjoyed the series & read Gods & Legions by Michael Curtis Ford. I started this series with The Death of Kings. If someone read this books & the one that follows, without knowing anything about Rome & Caesar, I think they would really enjoy these books.

I'm far from a historical expert on Caesar & Rome, but there were some historical inaccuracies that distracted me from fully enjoying this book. The main event was the suicide of Cato about 20 years before it actually happened. Cato's suicide infuriated Caesar in real life. He is noted as saying "Cato, I must grudge you your death, as you grudged me the honor of saving your life." Cato's death was one of the final events before Caesar declared his triumph.

The other part of this book & the next is the inclusion of Octavian who was born in 63 B.C. Octavian was born about 1-2 years before Caesar went to Gaul, yet he's at least 6 when Caesar is 19. (Note Gaul is mostly in Book 3.) The author obviously wanted to have Octavian in the series, but this discrepancy was hard to overlook. In the end of each book there is a historical note where the author says where he's changed historical facts for the story. He mentions Cato, but I don't recall him mentioning the age discrepancy of Octavian. He does mention he changed the relation to cousin or something from great uncle. Aside from the historical changes the story is well told & fun to read. I'd recommend these books to anyone interested in ancient Rome unless historical liberties taken to improve story would make it unreadable.

Conquering all others..........2006-12-13

Emperor: The Death of Kings by Conn Iggulden is a book in the Emperor series. This book is about Julius Caesar's life from one of his first military campaigns until his posting in Spain as a governor, a few years later. The book begins with the words "The Fort of Mytilene loomed above them on the hill" pulling me right into the story. Though only a leader of a small unit, Julius Caesar and his group joined by about 20 other men attack this fort being held by rebels. Disaster follows soon after the successful battle because pirates capture the ship Caesar is sailing on as they are leaving the port. For a long time, Caesar and the rest of the officers are trapped in the hold, but they soon escape. After that, Caesar assembles an army and goes after the pirate captain. He finds the pirate captain and has a pitched sea battle. Caesar wins and gets all his money back from when he had to pay his ransom. This is the first of three major battles described in the book. After the second battle, Caesar hears that his old nemesis Sulla has died in Rome. This is important because Caesar is now free to go back to Rome, having sworn not to return to Rome while Sulla was alive. The reason for the hatred between the two men must have been explained in the first book of the series. While in Rome Caesar is in Rome he must struggle with all the events that have happened while he was away. For example, his father's house was being occupied by one of Sulla's friends Antonidus also known as Sulla's "dog". Caesar kicks Antonidus out of the house resulting in a trial, which Caesar wins. After this trial, Caesar goes to battle having been recently promoted. The battle was incredibly successful because the Roman soldiers were better trained than the slaves who they were fighting. Immediately after the battle, Caesar is posted to Spain as a Governor where the book ends. There are many characters: some military people, some family and some friends. Some characters are famous in history such as Caesar's friend Brutus and his successor Octavian. The parts of the book in Rome have to do with the political aspects, which are extremely complicated because everyone is vying for power. A friend can become an enemy in a second. The book was complicated, attention grabbing and if you are afraid of long words, do not read it. The story seemed jerky at first, but then I realized that it really flowed smoothly. I particularly enjoyed reading about the trial because it was extremely suspenseful. Because of the author's style of writing, the book is energetic and interesting. Iggulden's characters are well described and are consistent in their actions throughout the story. Sometimes the author does not give enough detail about certain events and must be assumed from the first book; however, the action is fun to read and I liked it.

I Loved It!.......2006-11-23

"The Death of Kings", (second in the Emperor series), follows on from the first, taking in the period from the capture and imprisonment of Caesar up to the rebellion of Spartacus. It follows on directly from the first volume, so should not be read independently of that one.

Firstly, as I did not read this book for the historical accuracy, (I would have read a real historical non-fiction book, if I actually cared that much), I couldn't give too much of a toss about the liberties that Iggulden took with it, within certain broad limits. Especially, considering that he is so open about these liberties in the first place, (unlike some authors who have been very popular).

The narrative itself is certainly fast paced and keeps you moving from one thing to the next with a vigorous and frenetic energy. It is sometimes a bit lax on the details, but the sacrifice to speed is liveable. It not a book that presents a lot of profound comments on the life of Caesar, but it is an action novel. And it has plenty of it. I enjoyed the pace and the action a lot, and it was a rip-roaring read for that.

The characterisations were rather good, though sometimes a bit like a cardboard cut-out. I was especially drawn to the character of Cornelia in her reactions to the newly returned Caesar after Sulla had had his way with her. Her bitterness and anger, coupled with her strong desire to draw Caesar near her, were poignant and interesting. She is perhaps the deepest character of the series so far.

The book is not deep, and it takes a lot of liberties with the historical truth. However, if that is a concern, might I recommend real history books and not novels. This is a fast paced adventure novel with a lot of fighting, intrigue and other stuff. There is even romance, though I have skipped through as much of that as possible. If you are into a fast read that is not too taxing, I recommend this one. Just read the first one before you get to this one.

History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2 (Chronology)

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Check and see
Suprise! Suprise!
Prescient St Augustine?
Something of a disappointment
Romulus courts Helen, Paris founds Rome, Moses goes to Troy..

History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2 (Chronology)
Anatoly T Fomenko
Manufacturer: Delamere Resources LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 2913621066

Product Description

`History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2` is the second volume of the most explosive and astounding tractate on history ever written - however, every theory it contains, no matter how unorthodox, is backed by rock solid scientific data. The book is easy and pleasant to read; it is well-illustrated, contains hundreds of charts, graphs and illustrations, copies of ancient manuscripts, and countless facts attesting to the falsity of the chronology used nowadays. You will be amazed to discover: - That the chronology universally accepted today and taken for granted is simply wrong; - That ALL methods of dating of ancient sources and artefacts known today are erroneous or non-exact; - That there is not a single document that could be reliably dated earlier than the XIth century; The Author refers to the Middle Ages as the Antiquity and proves mutual superimposition of the Second and the Third Roman Empire, both of which become identified as the respective kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Furthermore, he asserts that the famous reform of the Occidental Church in the XI century by Pope Gregory Hildebrand was the reflection of the XII century reforms of Byzantine emperor Andronicus who in his turn identifies with Jesus Christ. The Trojan war counted by Homer happened only as late as of the XIII century A.D. and the great poet actually lived in XIV century A.D. No stone in history of Antiquity is left unturned. Literally. This book is the beginning of a major correction to the chronology we live with.

Customer Reviews:

Check and see.......2007-06-21

I don't care what other people say of this book. Those affirmig it's fake, they hadn't ever read it. Or have some special reasons to do so. "Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see..." This book won't make you feel comfortable. It'll make you feel free. It'll make you feel you're "not the only one" to feel you'd been lied to for centuries.

Suprise! Suprise!.......2007-03-22

Here is a serie of books which turns "the whole world" upside down. I learned a lot of it and I hope that a new book from A.T. Fomenko will follow very quick. A absolute must for everybody who is interested in history or even a little bit from it.

Prescient St Augustine?.......2006-02-05

We can so far divide the New Chronology into the following three parts:

a) The verifiable theory that proves consensual chronology wrong with the aid of astronomy, statistics and mathematics;

b) The new chronology hypothesis based on a new understanding of known historical facts and the most likely logical explanation of the most obvious inconsistencies inherent in the official version of history;

c) The history conjectures, that is experimental historical reconstructions based on assumptions that the authors believe to make sense in the light of their research and linguistic parallels - void of ironclad factual support to date.

Fomenko's theory complies with the most rigid scientific standards as a whole:

It gives a coherent explanation of what we already know.

- It is consistent: independent lines of inquiry all lead to the same conclusion.

- The predictions it makes are confirmed empirically.

Fomenko goes by the following axioms:

- Chronology is the basis of history;

- Human evolution has always been linear, gradual and irreversible;

- The "cyclic" nature of human civilization is a myth, likewise all the gaps, duplicates, "dark ages" and "renaissances" that we know from consensual history;

- The accumulation of geographical knowledge as reflected in cartography is a gradual and irreversible process;

- The chronological distance between a given manuscript and the events described therein is proportional to the amount of distortions it contains;

- There is no "useless" information in authentic ancient sources.

Why the mainstream historians do not shower mathematician Academician Dr.Prof Fomenko with thanks and laurels?

The Russians:

Because Fomenko asserts that there was no such thing as the Tartar and Mongol invasion followed by three centuries of slavery, providing a formidable body of documental evidence to prove his assertion. The so-called "Tartars and Mongols" were the actual ancestors of the modern Russians, living in a bilingual state with Arabic spoken as freely as Russian. The ancient Russian state was governed by a double structure of civil and military authorities. The hordes were actually professional armies with a tradition of lifelong conscription (the recruitment being the so-called "blood tax"). Their "invasions" were punitive operations against the regions that attempted tax evasion. Fomenko proves that Russian history as we know it today is a blatant forgery concocted by a host of German scientists brought to Russia by the usurper dynasty of the Romanovs, whose ascension to the throne was the result of coup d'état, charged with the mission of making their reign look legitimate. Fomenko proves Ivan the Terrible to be a collation of four rulers, no less. They represented the two rival dynasties - the legitimate rulers and the ambitious upstarts. The winner took it all! Over some 30 years of controversy, Russian historians have made a most remarkable transition - they were initially accusing the young mathematician Fomenko of anticommunist dissident activity and attempts to deface the historical legacy of Soviet Russia; nowadays the middle-aged mathematician is accused of adhering to "pro-communist Russian nationalism" and defacing the proud historical legacy of Great Russia.

The Westerners:

Because Fomenko blows consensual Russian history to smithereens, successfully removing a crucial cornerstone from underneath the otherwise impeccable edifice of World History. Fomenko adds insult to injury, wiping out one by one the Ancient Rome (the foundation of Rome in Italy is dated to the XIV century A. D.), the Ancient Greece and its numerous poleis, which he identifies as the mediaeval crusader settlements on the territory of Greece, and the Ancient Egypt (the pyramids of Giza become dated to the XI-XV century A. D. and identified as the royal cemetery of the Global "Mongolian" Empire, no less). The civilization of the Ancient Egypt is irrefutably dated to the XII-XV century A. D. with the aid of the ancient Egyptian horoscopes cut in stone. He was the first one to decipher and date all such horoscopes, coming up with mediaeval dates in every case. English historians rage at the suggestion that the history of Ancient England was de facto a Byzantine import transplanted to the English soil by the fugitive Byzantine nobility. To reward the English historians who consider themselves the true scribes of World History, the cover of the present book portrays Tintoretto's Jesus Christ crucified on the Big Ben.

The Chinese:

Because Fomenko wipes out the Ancient History of China outright. No such thing. Full point. The compilation of the so-called Ancient Chinese History is reliably datable to the XVII-XVIII century only. It is perfectly recognizable as the Ancient European history, reworked and transcribed in hieroglyphs as yet another historical transplantation, this time performed on the Chinese soil by the loving Jesuit hands. The Chinese are the next in line to go berserk. Chinese history is inevitably bound to get both more ancient and more eventful, proportionally to the growing involvement of China in the world affairs. Chinese historians will keep on finding valid proof of prehistoric Chinese spaceflights until the Politburo orders them to shut up.

The Arabs:

Too bad. Islam with all its key figures is datable to XV-XVI century A. D. Arabic historians may find consolation in the crucial historical role of the Ottoman Empire in the XVI-XVII century. The trouble is that this empire was initially a Christian state, with Hagia Sophia identifiable as Temple of Solomon, according to Fomenko! We can only guess if the acquisition of Alexander the Great (a Macedonian and a Christian) as the founder of the Muslim World Empire will make Fomenko's theories more acceptable to the Arabic mainstream. He certainly does not spare any holy cows at all, claiming The Stone of Qa'Aba in Mecca to contain the lost Arch of the Covenant.

The Divinity:

Despite of reiterated statement that his theory is all about chronology and not Religion, Fomenko stirs up a whole condominium of wasp nests. His collection of anathemas, fatwa, and other condemnations from all parties concerned is already considerable. Little wonder, considering that the history of religions à la Fomenko looks as follows: the pre-Christian period (before the XI century and JC), Bacchic Christianity (XI-XII century, before and after JC), JC Christianity (XII-XVI century) and its subsequent mutations into Orthodox Christianity, the Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, and so on.

According to Fomenko we know strictly NOTHING about the events that predate the X century A. D.

St Augustin was prescient when he spoke unto us: "be wary of mathematicians, particularly when they speak the truth."

Something of a disappointment.......2005-09-09

After having read the first volume of this expected series of 7 volumes I was triggered by the thesis of these authors that ancient Greek and Roman history did in fact take place in the Middle Ages. So I started studying medieval history of the Middle East - also known as Islamic history - to find out if the opponents of the ancient Greeks and Romans - the Acheamenid Persians, Sassanids, Scythians, Egyptians, etc. - also have their duplicates in medieval history. My search was disappointing: none of the many medieval Islamic dynasties seemed to correspond to the ancient middle eastern rulers.

However, I did find a close correspondence between Herodotus' Persian kings and medieval events:

- the defeat and capture of an Anatolian king - the Lydian Croesus - by the Persian conqueror Cyrus is identical to the defeat and capture of another Anatolian king - sultan Bayezid - by the Asian/Mongol conqueror Tamerlane;
- the Persian conquest of Egypt by the cruel tyrant Cambyses reds almost exactly as the Ottoman conquest of Egypt by Selim the Grim (note the nickname!);
- Darius the Lawgiver of the Persian Empire looks very much alike to Sulayman the Magnificent, the Lawgiver in Islamic history;
- Xerxes, whose main claim to fame is to be defeated by the Greeks at the naval battle of Salamis, looks like Selim II (the Sot) whose main claim to fame is to be defeated by a Spanish-Italian alliance at the naval battle of Lepanto.

I should have expected Fomenko et al. to arrive at similar conclusions, however, they claim that the Persian kings are the alter egos of the Angevin kings of Sicily whose biographies do not contain the exploits of the Persian kings.

The similiarities I indicate lead to the conclusion that Herodotus must have written his Histories at the close of the 16th century. But this is extremely late, given that Herodotus is "the Father of History", so therefore all other "ancient" histories must have been fabricated even later. Yet, the founders of modern chronology - Scaliger and Petavius - laid their foundations also at the close of the 16th century and had the full corpus of ancient histories already at their disposal.

It seems to me that Fomenko has to address these inconsistencies, maybe in the forthcoming 5 volumes?

Another critique of their book is that the correspondencies between different rulers are often based on a superficial comparison of the biographies; upon a more thorough comparison many details appear that do not correspond at all.

Finally, the authors rely heavily on the works of Gregorovius (1821-1891!!) - his medieval histories of Rome and Athens - as the source of medieval history; these works are - at least in the West - hoplessly outdated and have been superceded by more up-to-date works (for instance, Julius Norwich's trilogy on Byzantine history is not even cited).

Romulus courts Helen, Paris founds Rome, Moses goes to Troy.........2005-07-30

If you agree with Fomenko that Roman chronology is basically the foundation of the entire edifice of global chronology; you would also certainly agree that despite its numerous gaps and inconsistencies, Roman history is the best-documented field of ancient history, and thus a reference scale. But how well is the actual date of the Eternal City's foundation known?

Firstly, Rome is supposed to have been founded by the Trojans who had to flee after the fall of Troy. Some claim Rome to have been founded by Aeneas and Ulysses shortly after Troy had fallen; others are of the opinion that there was an entire dynasty that ruled for 500 years between the fall of Troy and the foundation of Rome.

Well, that's just an innocent 500 years long misunderstanding compared with what heretic Fomenko says, asserts, proves in his second volume: Second Roman Empire, Third Roman Empire, Biblical Kingdom of Israel, Biblical Kingdom of Judah, Holy Roman Empire are stories about basically same events, written from different points of view at different times. The underlying events have actually taken place during xii-xv cy. These histories have been written and perfected by multitude of highly talented humanist and clerical writers of xiii-xvi cy disguised as "ancients" with glorious names like Homer, Pluto, Thucydides etc..Chronology 2.0 beta..

Historians are kindly invited to report the bugs.

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The nature of art, the nature of dying
Turgid And Tendentious
the dreamlike state of dying
MUCH SENSE OF DEATH
A poet's stubborn pursuit of scruple

Death of Virgil
Hermann Broch
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0679755489
Release Date: 1995-01-15

Book Description

It is the reign of the Emperor Augustus, and Publius Vergilius Maro, the poet of the Aeneid and Caesar's enchanter, has been summoned to the palace, where he will shortly die. Out of the last hours of Virgil's life and the final stirrings of his consciousness, the Austrian writer Hermann Broch fashioned one of the great works of twentieth-century modernism, a book that embraces an entire world and renders it with an immediacy that is at once sensual and profound. Begun while Broch was imprisoned in a German concentration camp, The Death of Virgil is part historical novel and part prose poem -- and always an intensely musical and immensely evocative meditation on the relation between life and death, the ancient and the modern.

Customer Reviews:

The nature of art, the nature of dying.......2007-05-09

Broch twists the concept of "novel" here to throw at us a very long prose poem -of the highest order. Virgil arrives in Brindis with Augustus's naval convoy, coming from Greece, to spend there what will become his last 18 hours on Earth. Suffering from a strong fever, Virgil is in an almost constant delirium, dreaming with a young peasant (his guide from boat to palace), with Plocia, a former lover, and with an imaginary slave. The three of them will guide him to death. The central subject of the book is Virgil's obsession with the destruction of "The Eneid", for considering it imperfect and not worthy of survival. His two best friends, Lucius and Plocius, come to visit trying to confort him and to convince him not to destroy that major work of art (which in real life they actually did). Then Augustus himself arrives, and sustains with Virgil a long philosophical conversation, full of digressions and of Virgil's own hallucinations. The subject here is the nature of Art. Augustus maintains that "The Eneid" is the property of the people of Rome, as its national epic, while Virgil insists that any work of art is the sole property of its author and, in that capacity, he has every right -even more, the duty- to destroy it, by virtue of its imperfection. The long passage is full of Virgil's delirium in which he remembers his bucolic childhood and discusses with his phantoms the nature of love, happiness, success and life. Augustus, in turn, pronounces long and profound statements about the State, politics and community.

The final chapter, a mesmerizing one, is a long hallucination depicting the process of dying, in an absolutely vivid, hair-rising and beautiful way. I don't think there can be around another narration as impressive as this one about the passing from life to death. Virgil's soul sets sail in a ship, surrounded by the people he knew, who are left behind until Virgil metamorphoses into animal, vegetal, mineral, and spirit.

This is a hard reading, long, slow and obscure, and nevertheless it is a master treaty on death and what it means to be dying. That it will never have a mass of readers seems to be clear. But it is also clear that it pays to stay with it and get lost in the magic.

Turgid And Tendentious.......2007-03-25

Here we go: This book is the most turgid, arduous, impenetrable conglomeration of words I've ever come across (Finnegans Wake excepted). It brinks back memories of my school days in fourth year Latin and causes one to wish again that Virgil HAD burned The Aeneid, so as not to plague us fourth year A-level students, and - even more so, so that Broch would not have this pretentious trope on which to found a spurious Parnassus of fuddled and addled - dense to the point that all poetry is eclipsed - book of....whatever it is.

For -and this is the crux here - this book is not poetic, not the work of a master stylist at all. How many stylists use the same phrase, to wit, "humus of existence" at least fifteen times (I ceased counting after that)? Answer: None. They don't rely on the same phrase so often that it becomes cliché.

And then there is the prescient notion of Broch's Virgil of a coming saviour. I wonder if this has anything to do with Broch's conversion to Catholicism in the last years of his life. The point here is not pro or anti Christianity---The point is: What on earth does Broch mean by having his Virgil go on about a saviour of "perception" rather than mere poets, whose words occlude, rather than clarify perception? Perception implies an object. So, we are not amiss to ask: Perception of what? Broch goes on in such muddled prose that one gleans nothing from the book itself. But, of course, we all know what he is talking about when he brings in, time and again, the three-in-one godhead et cetera.

This book is best suited to theology and philosophy students who, for whatever reason, really do fancy quibbling over dense passages that lead nowhere, over abstruse points of doctrine, over meaningless verbiage.

Lovers of literature, take a pass.

the dreamlike state of dying.......2006-04-03

This work stands firmly as one of the masterpieces of 20th century literature, and is not to be missed by the thoughtful reader willing to spend some time with a great book. As mentioned by other reviewers, the writing, especially the feverish second part (it's a book of four parts), is dense and can be challenging to get through, though that effort will be well paid by the discussion with Augustus in the third, and the sublime death trip of the fourth and final part. The first part documents Virgil's arrival into burning Rome, and sets up what is to follow. One needn't have read anything by Virgil in preparation for this book, and to the best of my knowledge, Broch, though running from the Nazi's, never spent time in a concentration camp. And, for the curious, Broch's grave is in Connecticut.

MUCH SENSE OF DEATH.......2004-12-29

That is a feeble translation of Virgil's phrase `plurima mortis imago'. Those three words show a special way he had of using language not as a vehicle for thought but to convey something outside and beyond thought, and it is something that this book seems to be trying to replicate on a large scale. It is not something I find in Milton, still less in the collective folk-poetry of the Homeric epics, and the nearest to it that I can think of might be in Blake. It is not the normal idiom of the Aeneid by any means, but something that gleams through unpredictably now and again, and I am no nearer now than I was 50 years ago to getting an adequate translation of such a line as `Sunt lacrimae rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt'.

This book is hung around the legend that the dying Virgil wanted his incomplete epic the Aeneid burned as being imperfect, but it is about much more than Virgil, or his poem, or even death itself. It is about totality, something completely shapeless, senseless and even immortal - immortal partly because death itself is permanent and cannot be killed or destroyed, partly because there is always, has been always and will be always an infinite universe of what is. The book divides into 4 sections, each named after one of the 4 elements that some ancient philosophers reasoned to make up the world - water, fire, earth and air. This division actually seems to me rather contrived and unimportant to the book, and it is nothing remotely resembling the way the ancients themselves viewed their `elements'. Ovid explains them clearly if we just correct his text to read what he must have been saying `...aer, qui quanto est pondere terrae/pondus aquae leuius, tanto est onerosior igni' - `air which is heavier than fire by the same margin as the weight of water is less than that of earth'. The ancients found exact aliquot ratios like this to be intellectually satisfying, but the last thing this book is about is exactness. In the `fire' section we are engulfed in a drifting mist of ideas, concepts and abstractions, each forever changing its identity and merging randomly into the next. The only connection with fire seems to be that this is where the question of burning the manuscript of the Aeneid first arises. The first section relates the arrival of the dying poet by barge from Greece and has nothing more about water. The third section brings us abruptly back to earth with the dialogue between Virgil and Augustus, who does not want the poem glorifying his new Rome destroyed for very worldly political reasons. The fourth resembles the second in a more pictorial way as the flotilla of boats carrying the characters of the book, losing their identities as they go, sails into the infinite; and air was the one to fill the last slot.

At one point I read the phrase `the shadow that is language', and it is worth remembering that this edition is a translation. Translating a work like this is nothing like translating directives on food-labelling or fishery quotas in the European Commission. It is an art in its own right, it must have been superbly done, but what it simply cannot be is the same as the original. I hope it is the original that George Steiner is talking about on the back cover, because if not what he says does not deserve a moment's notice. There is nothing abnormal in the least about the English syntax here, although many sentences are certainly very long. I also doubt whether there is any useful concept of `technical advance' in fiction. There are untold million ways of being original, Joyce himself did not change the basic development of English one iota, and I don't read this work, at least in translation, as representing any more of a step-change in fiction-writing than, say, Stapledon.

I credit Broch with a good knowledge of his poet, of Latin and of the period, although I don't know who perpetrated `Sallustus' (for Sallustius) twice on one page. He seems to associate himself with the view that the poems Aetna and Culex are Virgil's and I would rather believe that he had never read them (for which I could blame nobody) than that he could possibly have taken that stuttering rubbish for the work of the master. I dare say I would have read the book differently if I had not been familiar with Virgil's own style, but it is only a side-issue whether I am right in seeing its influence here or not. Not all the knowledge of Latin in the world will make this book an easy read, and none is necessary really. Do not make it more obscure or complicated for yourself than it already is. The previous owner of my copy was some hapless student trying to make a connection with the Divine Comedy, as forlorn a quest for mares' nests as I ever saw in my life. I wouldn't dream of `recommending' such a work, which is bound to be of minority appeal, and if I have conveyed something of the feel of it that is as much as I can hope to have done.

A poet's stubborn pursuit of scruple.......2003-09-29

Hermann Broch's The Death of Virgil revolves about the poet's wish to burn his masterpiece, The Aeneid, and creates out of his signified keen senses and heightened perceptions a rich vision, with full actuality, the religious, philosophical and political impulses of the time. The novel should be read as an epic poem in four parts (water, fire, earth, air) that parallel to four movements of a symphony in which the manner of the theme and variations of each successive part serves as some kind of commentary and reiteration on the parts that have preceded it.

The book is arduous in reading, strenuous in contemplating the richly lyrical prose. Woven and sifted throughout are reflections and perceptions of Virgil's febrile yet lucid thoughts in such rocking rhythms that illuminate, to the full actuality, the macabre sensation of the drifting journey on which the poet is being carried by the bark of death. Death's signet was graved upon his brow. The epic closely accounts for the last 24 hours of Virgil's life as soon as the near-death poet returns to Rome from Athens. The uninterrupted flow of lyrical speculation begins at the port of Brundisium where the bark docks, lingers in the mental suspension between life and death, between the "no longer alive" and "not yet dead", and ends with the journey to death, to nothingness, to a dimension of non-recollection and stillness.

Truth seems to be the recurring theme. The notion of truth is being illuminated and brought to full elaboration through the repeating insistence of reflections on life, death, memory, knowledge, perception, and philosophy. As the poet approached death, he admits with bitterness and cold sobriety that he has pursued a worthless, wretched literary life. The Aeneid, which is acclaimed by Caesar and to whom it is dedicated, has been a mere indulgence of beauty, self-sufficiently limited to the embellishment of concepts long since conceived, formed, and known, without any novel contribution in it. The truth of artistic inadequacies, lack of perceptions, thirst for superficialities, and egotism yields the decision to mock his works. Despite Caesar's effort to cajole Virgil, the poet comments that he lacks the perception, to which he never takes the first step, and yet nobody has ever attained the knowledge of truth of such perception.

The stream of consciousness technique renders the poet's final hours to the full actuality. In fact, Virgil regards death as the most significant event of his life (perception and knowledge of truth?) and is full of anxiety lest he miss it. His sense of time seems to be warped and each passing second has grown to some immense, throbbing, empty space which is not to be linked. The body and its human qualities are denuded and are stripped to the naked soul with the most naked guilt. For Virgil, death is part of life and the understanding of death enlightens meaning of life. Strong than death and the shackle of time is fate, in which the final secret of time lay hidden. It is for this very secret of time (and death) that the suspense and tension of the book not being thwarted.

The conversations are reproductions of external events and actual dialogues (Aeneid, Georgics, Eclogue, Horace Carmina) and their inclusion into the book's inner monologue (the narrative seems to have proceeded in the third person but soon has discerned that narrative constitutes to an inner monologue made up of Virgil's dreams, reflections, visions, and delusions) gains them an abstract touch. The flow of the book presses on through various tempi according to the degree of Virgil's consciousness. The more headlong the tempo (which usually occurs during Virgil's conversations with his friends, attendants, and Caesar), the shorter the sentence. The slower the tempo becomes, the more complicated the sentence structure (i.e. Part 2 - Fire). Virgil's reflections and musings manifest some interminable, richly lyrical prose that mirrors the dying poet's thoughts and ravings.

The writing also deftly alludes to the religious impulse at the time of Virgil. Talks of the coming of salvation bringer prevail in Virgil's conversations with Caesar, who denies the need of such salvation. In various occasions Virgil forebodes the coming of a savior who will not only live in the perception, but in his being the world will be redeemed to truth, whom will conquer death and bring himself to the sacrifice out of love for men and mankind, transferring himself by his own death into the deed of truth. Virgil's audacious statement signifies the turning point in history, the crisis of the godless era between the no longer antiquity and the net yet of Christianity.

Book Description

This innovative volume draws on recent research in archaeology, ancient history and the history of medicine to discuss how people in the ancient world understood and dealt with illness and death in the urban environment.

History of the Later Roman Empire: From the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian (Volume 2)

Average customer rating:

Excellent scholarship
The Justinian period

History of the Later Roman Empire: From the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian (Volume 2)
J. B. Bury
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0486203999

Book Description

Volume 2 of classic history. One of the world's foremost historians chronicles the major forces and events in the history of the Western and Byzantine Empires from the death of Theodosius (A.D. 395) to the death of Justinian (A.D. 565).

Customer Reviews:

Excellent scholarship.......2005-05-16

This book is volume 2 of a reprint edition of Bury's "History of the Later Roman Empire" which was originally published in the early 1920s. It is well to keep this in mind when reading this work, as all the footnotes refer to works of scholarship from this period or before (obviously!) and much archaeological and philological work has been done since then. The reader should also keep in mind that Bury was writing for an audience that could read classical Latin and Greek, and therefore he includes passages in both languages that are not translated.

This second volume focuses exclusively on the reigns of Justin I and his famous nephew, Justinian the Great. As with the first volume, Bury's scholarship is very impressive and wide-ranging and the book is extraordinarily useful as a general reference on the reign of Justinian. In format, it is somewhat marred by disjunction and lack of flow among the chapters. Bury begins with a history of the reign of Justin I, but then interrupts his narrative with extensive character sketches of Justinian, Theodora, John the Cappadocian, and others as well as descriptions of the church of St. Sophia, the Nika Rebellion, etc. For those lacking a basic framework of Justinian's reign, this can make for confusing reading.

Bury then picks up the narrative again, successfully blending the sources at his disposal to give a coherent account of the Persian, Gothic, and Vandalic wars of the Justinianic reign. Toward the end, he gives excellent summaries of the financial and ecclesiastical situations within the empire. His overview of the great Justinianic legal reform is good, and would have been better if Bury had not wasted two whole pages decrying Roman divorce laws--this being a peculiar preoccupation for some British writers. The work ends with a very useful discussion of the major historians of the 6th century, Procopius, John Malalas, Agathias, etc.

Bury's romantic attachment to Greco-Roman paganism is evident throughout volume 2, though it is better concealed than in the previous volume. The same is true of his dislike for Roman Catholicism, and particularly the papacy. He maintains, however, an annoying tendency to judge the actions of historical figures in terms of 20th century humanism.

Overall, as long as readers are able to spot Bury's occasional biases with a clear eye, they will be well-rewarded by the time they finish this volume.

The Justinian period.......2004-10-29

This second volume of Bury's work is a good stand-alone volume about the history of the Justinian period, but really belongs with the companion first volume, which when taken together forms a comprehensive view of the Late Roman Empire to the time of its final, irrevocable split.

J.B. Bury was an historian of note in the early part of the twentieth century. Educated at Irish universities, he ended up as a professor at Cambridge. He did much to expand the historical horizons of students and scholars in the English-speaking world, whose focus had narrowed into distinctly Western emphases. This volume on the Late Roman Empire is one such work - not content to explore the Roman Empire as centred wholly upon Rome (or, as was often the case with British historians, a Rome-Canterbury axis), his interest in the histories further afield is evident by his concentration on `barbarian'/Germanic influences, Eastern Roman Empire and Byzantine events, and courses of history outside of those that led in a linear fashion to the modern British nation.

Quite often, histories written in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries suffer from several deficiencies, the bias described above being but one of them. Lack of reference to archaeological and documentary evidence (some of which was not available) is often the case, and a cultural influence perhaps described as `Christendom-centric' is usually evident, if not blatantly then at least in implied and undergirding assumption. Obviously, Bury's text cannot benefit from the archaeological and methodological developments of the twentieth century, but it does stand the test of time fairly well in terms of being broader in approach, less judgemental in analysis, and fairly close in using original source material and primary documents whenever possible.

One of the comments that Bury makes regarding the times of the Late Roman Empire (which he dates from the death of Theodosius I in 395 to the death of Justinian in 565) still rings true today - we often know far more about the events and details of life in Egypt of the Pharoahs thousands of years prior than we do about the events, or even the leading figures, of the time sometimes referred to as the beginning of the Dark Ages (Bury himself rarely uses this term in the text as part of his own descriptions). His selection of Theodosius and Justinian look to periods of unification in the general trend of disintegration of traditional Roman authority. The centre of power had already shifted during the period of Diocletian and Constantine away from the actual city of Rome; Theodosius I was emperor of both East and West prior to his death in 395, and Justinian was the last of the emperors of the East to have any hegemony or real authority in the West (the official line of Western emperors ended with Julius Nepos and Romulus Augustulus nearly a hundred years before the time of Justinian).

Some of Bury's insights into the period dispel typical notions of the pattern of history - Bury points out that most of the so-called pagan invaders were in fact neither pagan nor invaders. The Germanic `barbarians' were less waves of invaders, as often popularly thought, but more of the nature of longer-term settlers, who over time shifting the demographics away from Roman/Mediterranean to Northern European stock. Battles were frequently, but rarely large and long-lasting. As for being pagans, it is true that most were not orthodox/catholic Christians, but many if not most were Arian Christians, something that the more orthodox patriarchs in Rome, Constantinople and other leading centres of Christendom found to be even more of a threat.

The second volume covers about 50 years, less than half the period of the first volume, a period of much greater clarity, relatively speaking, in the historical record. Recreation of the historical record is still a matter of fragmentary reconstruction, but there is much more documentary data from the period of Justinian, whose reign represented a window of stability in administration for both East and West. Consolidation of the church in many places, and reinstitution of the last of Roman authority in the West, which then served as the foundation for later kingdoms and cultures, took place during this time.

Bury's balanced text is perhaps exemplified in his treatment of Theodora, a controversial figure in her own time and every time thereafter. Bury is careful to balance political rumour and social innuendo from verifiable fact, and discusses not only the motivations of the Empress and Justinian, but also the people around her. Particularly with regard to differences between Justinian and Theodora (for example, the Monophysite controversy), he is good at navigating an even-handed course in his discussion.

Bury's text is interesting and lively, not at all the dry and dusty tome of typical of many nineteenth century academic writers. Bury is a good corrective and addition to Gibbons, adding detail in his balanced treatment of East and West. Bury includes several genealogical tables, interesting in that they still retain blank spaces where people's names in the charts remain unknown to us (while some have since been filled in by more recent scholars, some remain a mystery). There are also useful maps. There is a helpful index and bibliography, but this is found only at the conclusion of this second volume.

Darkling I Listen: The Last Days and Death of John Keats

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Not just a biography
Exquisite
Life, sex, and death: the drama of Keats' last days

Darkling I Listen: The Last Days and Death of John Keats
John Evangelist Walsh
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0312222556

Book Description

On October 21, 1820, John Keats set foot in Rome for what he hoped would be a swift convalescence that would return him to his normally energetic pace of writing. Exactly one hundred days later, he succumbed to consumption, dead at the age of twenty-five. This charming, elegiac, and detailed book brings to light the last days of his life, describing what he experienced in his room overlooking the quaint Piazza di Spagna and his tragically unrealized ambitions for the future. Keats' famous love affair with the young Fanny Brawne has long fascinated biographers, but Walsh shows for the first time how complex their relationship was, and how the events at the end of Keats' life illuminate the whole of their affair. He also discusses Keats' views on religion and the exact nature of the illness that killed him. This book is a must-read for those interested in Keats, and will delight anyone who follows Walsh's curiosity into the life and death of a gifted and tragic poet.

Customer Reviews:

Not just a biography.......2003-02-13

It is so amazing that in a career lasting only four years, John Keats established himself as English poet who best embodied the sense and ideas of Romantic poetry. That his short life was cut off at such a young age was a tragedy in the sense of all the unwritten works that could have flowed from his pen, but even so, he achieved his life ambition of being "one of the English poets".
Darkling I Listen is an incredibly moving account of the last days of this most tragic (and most romantic) of poets. From his passionate letters to Fanny Brawne to his last moments under the care of his truest friend Joseph Severn, this story will wring your heart.

Exquisite.......2001-03-20

This book really is a little jewel -beautifully researched and written and incredibly moving. Keats is vividly portrayed, and , as the previous reviewer noted, Joseph Severn is given his due as the best person Keats could have had with him in his dying days. Severn was a devout Christian, according to Walsh, and his life after Keats' death exemplified the Christian belief that if you give selflessly, you will receive... Just have a box of tissues handy while reading this book...

Life, sex, and death: the drama of Keats' last days.......2000-05-18

Love may not kill, but it can certainly give you a smart shove down that road. Walsh's vivid, neatly researched book gives us a new look at the one whose name was writ on water and his curious agonies over the girl he would have married. Keats, impassioned, gifted, doomed, is even so not gilded here; from the surviving materials he is revealed as intense, a bit obsessive, and never more so than concerning Fanny Brawne. This is one of the most famed loves in history, freshly examined with the fairest look to date at Fanny's equally complicated character. Whether they take place in British rooms or Roman, the dramas within are drawn with lively and poignant detail. Special care is taken, too, to give Joseph Severn the full credit due for his constant vigil at Keats' long dying. To me, Severn's character was by far the most appealing, and Walsh's story left me certain that a steady, loving heart is genius of its own kind.

History of the Later Roman Empire: From the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian (Volume 1)

Average customer rating:

A great book about the latter era of the Roman Empire.
A valuable but flawed history
A great overview of another time
"In-Depth Survey of the Later Roman Empire"
comprehensive and engaging

History of the Later Roman Empire: From the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian (Volume 1)
J. B. Bury
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0486203980

Book Description

Volume 1 of classic history. One of the world's foremost historians chronicles the major forces and events in the history of the Western and Byzantine Empires from the death of Theodosius (A.D. 395) to the death of Justinian (A.D. 565).

Customer Reviews:

A great book about the latter era of the Roman Empire........2005-07-04

History of the Later Roman Empire, is an interesting read for those who want to know more about the Eastern Roman Empire. Justinian I was considered the last real Roman emperor. The empire was slowly becoming Greek in nature
and less Latin. The writer goes into great detail during this era. Using maps and battle diagrams to illustrate, J.B. Bury also references older books (I like Secret History) and many Greek records and documents. For an older book it's a good reference and a fascinating read. If you want to learn more about a rarely talked about period of western civilization or what happened to the Roman Empire this is a good start,

Highly recommended.

A valuable but flawed history.......2005-04-04

This is volume 1 of a 2 volume reprint of a work originally published in 1923. The original publication date is not mentioned on the title page, back cover, or anywhere else and may only be inferred by reading the author's preface. Dover would really do its customers a service by mentioning the 1923 publication date somewhere. The reprint itself is adequately done, though it would have benefited from some pre-press touching up as small bits of text has dropped out in a few spots.

Overall, this is an extremely useful book for the researcher of the Late Roman/Early Byzantine empire. Bury covers all aspects of the empire during this period in adequate detail--enough to maintain a full and compelling narrative, but not too much as to drown the reader in minutiae. As with many scholars of his time, Bury was extraordinarily learned and an expansive researcher. The breadth of the sources he cites is indeed impressive, and every page is heavily footnoted. A 20 page bibliography is included at the end of Volume 2 that includes ancient historical and literary sources, inscriptions, and modern historical, literary, and artistic works up through the 1920s. This is very useful for pointing the serious researcher toward resources to provide additional detail on specific subjects of interest.

Readers should beware, however, that this book was written during a time when it was assumed that most folks trained in the liberal arts would have a working knowledge of both Greek and Latin. This may be a source of some frustration to modern readers, as Bury retains many short passages in the original languages.

The greatest weakness of this work is one that afflicts many scholars of the Anglo-American tradition up to the present day--a barely concealed animus toward the Roman Catholic Church in general and toward the Papacy in particular. Sadly, this bias permeates Bury's work, along with a not-quite-dispassionate attachment to Greco-Roman paganism that borders on the romantic. For Bury, it gets so thick in sections that it completely eclipses any semblance of scholarly objectivity.

An example may suffice: In a long tangent from his main narrative, Bury presents a harsh critical analysis of "City of God", the monumental work of St. Augustine of Hippo which seems distinctly out of place. As part of his critique, he writes, "The main argument itself, although it has a definite architectural scheme, is marred by diffuseness and digressions." It seems that the irony of such a statement, contained as it is in a diffuse digression from Bury's central theme, was lost on the author. And indeed, this statement makes for an accurate criticism of the whole of Bury's work.

It is indeed unfortunate that many of the most celebrated modern resources in English for this time period were written by protestant/agnostic/atheist scholars with an axe to grind. Few works exist to hold up the Catholic argument--at least in English. Perhaps someday, a press will see fit to translate the truly monumental Ecclesiastical Annals of the 16th century apologist and historian Cardinal Baronius into English to provide some much-needed counterpoise to the easily available histories of Gibbon and Bury.

A great overview of another time.......2004-10-29

J.B. Bury was an historian of note in the early part of the twentieth century. Educated at Irish universities, he ended up as a professor at Cambridge. He did much to expand the historical horizons of students and scholars in the English-speaking world, whose focus had narrowed into distinctly Western emphases. This volume on the Late Roman Empire is one such work - not content to explore the Roman Empire as centred wholly upon Rome (or, as was often the case with British historians, a Rome-Canterbury axis), his interest in the histories further afield is evident by his concentration on `barbarian'/Germanic influences, Eastern Roman Empire and Byzantine events, and courses of history outside of those that led in a linear fashion to the modern British nation.

Quite often, histories written in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries suffer from several deficiencies, the bias described above being but one of them. Lack of reference to archaeological and documentary evidence (some of which was not available) is often the case, and a cultural influence perhaps described as `Christendom-centric' is usually evident, if not blatantly then at least in implied and undergirding assumption. Obviously, Bury's text cannot benefit from the archaeological and methodological developments of the twentieth century, but it does stand the test of time fairly well in terms of being broader in approach, less judgemental in analysis, and fairly close in using original source material and primary documents whenever possible.

One of the comments that Bury makes regarding the times of the Late Roman Empire (which he dates from the death of Theodosius I in 395 to the death of Justinian in 565) still rings true today - we often know far more about the events and details of life in Egypt of the Pharoahs thousands of years prior than we do about the events, or even the leading figures, of the time sometimes referred to as the beginning of the Dark Ages (Bury himself rarely uses this term in the text as part of his own descriptions). His selection of Theodosius and Justinian look to periods of unification in the general trend of disintegration of traditional Roman authority. The centre of power had already shifted during the period of Diocletian and Constantine away from the actual city of Rome; Theodosius I was emperor of both East and West prior to his death in 395, and Justinian was the last of the emperors of the East to have any hegemony or real authority in the West (the official line of Western emperors ended with Julius Nepos and Romulus Augustulus nearly a hundred years before the time of Justinian).

Some of Bury's insights into the period dispel typical notions of the pattern of history - Bury points out that most of the so-called pagan invaders were in fact neither pagan nor invaders. The Germanic `barbarians' were less waves of invaders, as often popularly thought, but more of the nature of longer-term settlers, who over time shifting the demographics away from Roman/Mediterranean to Northern European stock. Battles were frequently, but rarely large and long-lasting. As for being pagans, it is true that most were not orthodox/catholic Christians, but many if not most were Arian Christians, something that the more orthodox patriarchs in Rome, Constantinople and other leading centres of Christendom found to be even more of a threat.

The first volume covers about 120 years, a period of murkiness in the historical record. Physical monuments are few and far between. Church records and writings were always intentionally biased in presentations, as were the meagre political discourses which have survived. Bury points out that no contemporary histories or records of events survive - sometimes even of the emperors and leading figures in Rome and other princedoms all we have left to us are names on lists (this same holds true for the early church and lists of bishops, patriarchs and popes). Thus, reconstruction of the history of this period is one of reconstructing fragments.

Bury's text is interesting and lively, not at all the dry and dusty tome of typical of many nineteenth century academic writers. Bury is a good corrective and addition to Gibbons, adding detail in his balanced treatment of East and West. Bury includes several genealogical tables, interesting in that they still retain blank spaces where people's names in the charts remain unknown to us (while some have since been filled in by more recent scholars, some remain a mystery). There are also useful maps. There is a helpful index and bibliography, but this is found only at the conclusion of the second volume.

"In-Depth Survey of the Later Roman Empire".......2001-12-09

Volume one of Bury's in-depth work handles the vicissitudes of the later Empire, beginning with the end of Theodosius the Great's reign in A.D. 395 until Theoderic's artful subjugation of Italy in A.D. 493. Detailed civil, administrative, topographical, and military analysis' underlay a significant portion at the start of this work; and they provide important information concerning the Empire's indelible shift and mutual balance of power between the two great cities, Rome and Constantinople. Bury concentrates on the barbarian tribes that eventually made claims to independent sovreignty within, and on the fringes, of Imperial territory; and also on the emperors who ignominously ceeded it to them. Bury also delves on the theological disputes, Church and State relations, and the Pagan and Christian sentiments towards the Roman world in transition and decline. While this work is exhaustive and full of valuable research material, it still remains eloquent and interesting, containing an engrossing storyline througout its duration. A comprehensive study of the Later Roman Empire will be difficult without this volume; and with volume two, Bury's work will be totally indispensable.

comprehensive and engaging.......1999-12-23

Bury's classic keeps the reader at all times close to the primary sources, resulting in a unique view of the period (395-465) that is less filtered than many more recent treatments. The start of volume I (Rome's administrative apparatus) seems somewhat dry at first, and is an effort to set the stage and provide necessary background for the rest, rather than to induce one to keep reading. But getting through this is well worth it, for what follows is a rounded, interesting presentation of political, social and military developments -- and their context -- from the end of unified control of the empire under Theodosius to Justinian's attempt to restore Rome's glory.

Book Description

From Italy's popular author Corrado Augias comes the most intriguing exploration of Rome ever to be published. In the mold of his earlier histories of Paris, New York, and London, Augias moves perceptively through twenty-seven centuries of Roman life, shedding new light on a cast of famous, and infamous, historical figures and uncovering secrets and conspiracies that have shaped the city without our ever knowing it. From Rome's origins as Romulus's stomping ground to the dark atmosphere of the Middle Ages; from Caesar's unscrupulousness to Caravaggio's lurid genius; from the notorious Lucrezia Borgia to the seductive Anna Fallarino, the marchioness at the center of one of Rome's most heinous crimes of the post-war period, Augias creates a sweeping account of the passions that have shaped this complex city: at once both a metropolis and a village, where all human sentiment-bravery and cowardice, industriousness and sloth, enterprise and laxity-find their interpreters and stage. If the history of humankind is all passion and uproar, then, as the author notes, "for centuries Rome has been the mirror of this history, reflecting with excruciating accuracy every detail, even those that might cause you to avert your gaze."

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Death and Burial in the Roman World
J. M. C. Toynbee
Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0801855071