Christendom: The Triumph of a Religion

Heather, Peter

Religion & Spirituality

Penguin Books, Ltd.

Why Empires Fall: Rome, America and the Future of the West

Rapley, John

History

In 476 AD, the last of Rome's emperors, known as "Augustulus," was deposed by a barbarian general, the son of one of Attila the Hun's henchmen. With the imperial vestments dispatched to Constantinople, the curtain fell on the Roman empire in Western Europe, its territories divided among successor kingdoms constructed around barbarian military manpower. But, if the Roman Empire was dead, Romans across much of the old empire still lived, holding on to their lands, their values, and their institutions. The conquering barbarians, responding to Rome's continuing psychological dominance and the practical value of many of its institutions, were ready to reignite the imperial flame and enjoy the benefits. As Peter Heather shows in dazzling biographical portraits, each of the three greatest immediate contenders for imperial power--Theoderic, Justinian, and Charlemagne--operated with a different power base but was astonishingly successful in his own way. Though each in turn managed to put back together enough of the old Roman West to stake a plausible claim to the Western imperial title, none of their empires long outlived their founders' deaths. Not until the reinvention of the papacy in the eleventh century would Europe's barbarians find the means to establish a new kind of Roman Empire, one that has lasted a thousand years. A sequel to the bestselling Fall of the Roman Empire, The Restoration of Rome offers a captivating narrative of the death of an era and the birth of the Catholic Church.

The Restoration of Rome: Barbarian Popes and Imperial Pretenders

Ancient Civilizations

Oxford University Press

The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians

The death of the Roman Empire is one of the perennial mysteries of world history. Now, in this groundbreaking book, Peter Heather proposes a stunning new solution: Centuries of imperialism turned the neighbors Rome called barbarians into an enemy capable of dismantling an Empire that had dominated their lives for so long. A leading authority on the late Roman Empire and on the barbarians, Heather relates the extraordinary story of how Europe's barbarians, transformed by centuries of contact with Rome on every possible level, eventually pulled the empire apart. He shows first how the Huns overturned the existing strategic balance of power on Rome's European frontiers, to force the Goths and others to seek refuge inside the Empire. This prompted two generations of struggle, during which new barbarian coalitions, formed in response to Roman hostility, brought the Roman west to its knees. The Goths first destroyed a Roman army at the battle of Hadrianople in 378, and went on to sack Rome in 410. The Vandals spread devastation in Gaul and Spain, before conquering North Africa, the breadbasket of the Western Empire, in 439. We then meet Attila the Hun, whose reign of terror swept from Constantinople to Paris, but whose death in 453 ironically precipitated a final desperate phase of Roman collapse, culminating in the Vandals' defeat of the massive Byzantine Armada: the west's last chance for survival. Peter Heather convincingly argues that the Roman Empire was not on the brink of social or moral collapse. What brought it to an end were the barbarians.

Product Description 
Between the fall of the western Roman Empire in the fifth century and the collapse of the east in the face of the Arab invasions in the seventh, the remarkable era of the Emperor Justinian (527-568) dominated the Mediterranean region. Famous for his conquests in Italy and North Africa, and for 
the creation of spectacular monuments such as the Hagia Sophia, his reign was also marked by global religious conflict within the Christian world and an outbreak of plague that some have compared to the Black Death. For many historians, Justinian is far more than an anomaly of Byzantine ambition 
between the eras of Attila and Muhammad; he is the causal link that binds together the two moments of Roman imperial collapse. Determined to reverse the losses Rome suffered in the fifth century, Justinian unleashed an aggressive campaign in the face of tremendous adversity, not least the plague. 
This book offers a fundamentally new interpretation of his conquest policy and its overall strategic effect, which has often been seen as imperial overreach, making the regime vulnerable to the Islamic takeover of its richest territories in the seventh century and thus transforming the great Roman 
Empire of Late Antiquity into its pale shadow of the Middle Ages.\nIn 
Rome Resurgent, historian Peter Heather draws heavily upon contemporary sources, including the writings of Procopius, the principal historian of the time, while also recasting that author's narrative by bringing together new perspectives based on a wide array of additional source material. A huge 
body of archaeological evidence has become available for the sixth century, providing entirely new means of understanding the overall effects of Justinian's war policies. Building on his own distinguished work on the Vandals, Goths, and Persians, Heather also gives much fuller coverage to Rome's 
enemies than Procopius ever did. A briskly paced narrative by a master historian, 
Rome Resurgent promises to introduce readers to this captivating and unjustly overlooked chapter in ancient warfare.\nReview 
"Heather offers a clear, logically argued analysis of what Procopius wrote." -- Mike Markowitz, 
The NYMAS Review\n" 
Rome Resurgent is utterly brilliant." -- Adrian Spooner, 
Classics for All\n"Heather offers a deeper understanding of [Justinian's] reign and his arguments are convincing. For readers who already know this period of history well, this book will definitely be thought-provoking ... he's produced a well-written narrative that's engaging and easy to read, making this book 
accessible to anybody with an interest in Justinian, not just academics." -- All About History\n"This is a well-written, lucid, and persuasive general history of the reign of Justinian and the broader context within which it should be understood, one that offers an up-to-date account of a crucial moment in the history of the Mediterranean and Middle East and should certainly replace some of 
the older popular literature on Justinian and his reign." -- John Haldon, 
The American Historical Review\n"Bold, absorbing and thoroughly compelling . . . Combining a wealth of literary material, a flare for swashbuckling narrative, and the most up-to-date archaeological discoveries available, Heather endeavours to achieve a critical realignment of the traditional and often contradictory views of 
Justinian's attempt to reconstitute the West at the point of a sword." -- 
Bryn Mawr Classical Review\n"This book does full justice to 'the extraordinary historical phenomenon which is Justinian.' It combines a refreshingly sane view of the sixth-century East Roman Empire which Justinian came to rule, of the western world on which he impinged in a series of memorable military adventures, and of the 
overall significance of his achievements. Written with a sharp sense of the unpredictable in war and politics, it catches, as few other books have done, the breathtaking quality of the reign of the last truly great emper

Rome Resurgent: War and Empire in the Age of Justinian (Ancient Warfare and Civilization)

Between the fall of the western Roman Empire in the fifth century and the collapse of the east in the face of the Arab invasions in the seventh, the remarkable era of the Emperor Justinian (527-568) dominated the Mediterranean region. Famous for his conquests in Italy and North Africa, and for the creation of spectacular monuments such as the Hagia Sophia, his reign was also marked by global religious conflict within the Christian world and an outbreak of plague that some have compared to the Black Death. For many historians, Justinian is far more than an anomaly of Byzantine ambition between the eras of Attila and Muhammad; he is the causal link that binds together the two moments of Roman imperial collapse. Determined to reverse the losses Rome suffered in the fifth century, Justinian unleashed an aggressive campaign in the face of tremendous adversity, not least the plague. This book offers a fundamentally new interpretation of his conquest policy and its overall strategic effect, which has often been seen as imperial overreach, making the regime vulnerable to the Islamic takeover of its richest territories in the seventh century and thus transforming the great Roman Empire of Late Antiquity into its pale shadow of the Middle Ages. In Rome Resurgent, historian Peter Heather draws heavily upon contemporary sources, including the writings of Procopius, the principal historian of the time, while also recasting that author's narrative by bringing together new perspectives based on a wide array of additional source material. A huge body of archaeological evidence has become available for the sixth century, providing entirely new means of understanding the overall effects of Justinian's war policies. Building on his own distinguished work on the Vandals, Goths, and Persians, Heather also gives much fuller coverage to Rome's enemies than Procopius ever did. A briskly paced narrative by a master historian, Rome Resurgent promises to introduce readers to this captivating and unjustly overlooked chapter in ancient warfare.

Americas

Empires and Barbarians presents a fresh, provocative look at how a recognizable Europe came into being in the first millennium AD. With sharp analytic insight, Peter Heather explores the dynamics of migration and social and economic interaction that changed two vastly different worlds--the undeveloped barbarian world and the sophisticated Roman Empire--into remarkably similar societies and states. The book's vivid narrative begins at the time of Christ, when the Mediterranean circle, newly united under the Romans, hosted a politically sophisticated, economically advanced, and culturally developed civilization--one with philosophy, banking, professional armies, literature, stunning architecture, even garbage collection. The rest of Europe, meanwhile, was home to subsistence farmers living in small groups, dominated largely by Germanic speakers. Although having some iron tools and weapons, these mostly illiterate peoples worked mainly in wood and never built in stone. The farther east one went, the simpler it became: fewer iron tools and ever less productive economies. And yet ten centuries later, from the Atlantic to the Urals, the European world had turned. Slavic speakers had largely superseded Germanic speakers in central and Eastern Europe, literacy was growing, Christianity had spread, and most fundamentally, Mediterranean supremacy was broken. Bringing the whole of first millennium European history together, and challenging current arguments that migration played but a tiny role in this unfolding narrative, Empires and Barbarians views the destruction of the ancient world order in light of modern migration and globalization patterns.

Empires and Barbarians: The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Heather, Peter. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Heather, Peter

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Heather, Peter. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Christendom: The Triumph of a Religion

Why Empires Fall: Rome, America and the Future of the West

The Restoration of Rome: Barbarian Popes and Imperial Pretenders

The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians

The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians

Rome Resurgent: War and Empire in the Age of Justinian (Ancient Warfare and Civilization)

Rome Resurgent: War and Empire in the Age of Justinian (Ancient Warfare and Civilization)

The Restoration of Rome: Barbarian Popes and Imperial Pretenders

Empires and Barbarians: The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe

Empires and Barbarians: The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe