作者:
Peter Heather 出版社: Oxford University Press 副标题: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians 出版年: 2007-6-11 页数: 576 定价: CAD 21.95 装帧: Paperback ISBN: 9780195325416
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 ...
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.
These consistently portray Germanic (and Germanic-dominated) societies at this later date as comprising essentially three castes: freemen, freedmen and slaves. Unlike its Roman counterpart, where the offspring of freedmen were completely free – and thus freemen – freedman status in the Germanic world was hereditary. Intermarriage between the three castes was banned, and a complicated public ceremony was required for an individual to jump across any of the divides. (查看原文)
Other fourth-century legal texts refer to a previously unknown phenomenon, the ‘deserted lands’ (agri deserti). Most of these texts are very general, giving no indication of the amounts of land that might be involved, but one law, of AD 422, referring to North Africa, indicates that a staggering 3,000 square miles fell into this category in that region alone. A further run of late Roman legislation also attempted to tie certain categories of tenant farmers (coloni) to their existing estates, to prevent them moving. It was easy, in fact irresistible, to weave these separate phenomena into a narrative of cause and effect, whereby the late Empire’s punitive tax regime made it uneconomic to farm all the land that had previously been under cultivation. This was said to have generated large-scal... (查看原文)
画红线处，按常理，叙马库斯不太可能去印度避暑。原文为：Sometime after 395, our old friend Symmachus – enjoying an Indian summer, to judge from his correspondence. 维基上Indian Summer词条解释为 Indian summer is a period of unseasonably warm, dry weather that...
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查看作者的英文背景介绍和作品年表，个人认为这个所谓“三部曲”完全是一个国内出版社的营销策略。作者本人可能并不存在这么一个三部曲的明确写作结构。 第一本《罗马帝国的陨落》，副标题被翻译切了半截，原文是“a New History of Rome and the Barbarians”，应为“一部新的...
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More often than not, when seeking answers to the question "What caused the Fall of Rome?", many would resort to Edward Gibbon's the well-known tome, but in this book the author Peter Heater provides an alternative view focusing on external factors - the bar...
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中信出版社2016版
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中信出版社2016版
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中信出版社2016版
璩白秋弋瞳
中信出版社2016版
5 有用 嘿哈嘿哈 2012-12-25 18:16:41
和爱德华吉本相反，这本书的作者Heather认为罗马帝国毁灭的主因来自外部 - 野蛮人的入侵。其主要论点就是，野蛮人最初的扩张让帝国周围的外族人流离失所，从而移民至罗马帝国内，随着逃难的移民在罗马帝国内的人数不断增多，帝国的税务管理出现了严重问题，导致税务体系的紊乱和随后的税收减少。依靠金钱雇佣的军队，在政府无足够财政支付军饷的情况下，土崩瓦解。于是野蛮人最终与476年终结了西罗马帝国的政治体制。... 和爱德华吉本相反，这本书的作者Heather认为罗马帝国毁灭的主因来自外部 - 野蛮人的入侵。其主要论点就是，野蛮人最初的扩张让帝国周围的外族人流离失所，从而移民至罗马帝国内，随着逃难的移民在罗马帝国内的人数不断增多，帝国的税务管理出现了严重问题，导致税务体系的紊乱和随后的税收减少。依靠金钱雇佣的军队，在政府无足够财政支付军饷的情况下，土崩瓦解。于是野蛮人最终与476年终结了西罗马帝国的政治体制。总体上，本书观点不错，论证详细。看完了也有些想法，详见书评。 (展开)
3 有用 方若 2017-12-10 17:23:38
2017年最佳阅读体验，也最耗时耗精力。罗马帝国西最后的两百年。结合王明珂的羌族研究来阅读则更佳。
0 有用 booloo 2022-03-07 15:34:40
通俗读物
0 有用 晓木曰兮历史系 2019-05-18 23:56:03
非常好的书，作者一反常态，以批驳吉本的角度提出了自己的观念。西罗马的灭亡更多的是体现在日耳曼人进入罗马以后，罗马无法同化这些这些人，数量庞大的蛮族不是自然而然的融合，而是由于更加野蛮的匈人而推到了罗马。罗马皇帝也是有自己的私心，但是没想到自己接纳了他们，而他们的嫡亲后裔灭掉了西罗马。三世纪是一个第一个游牧部落的高峰，西晋八王之乱后的五胡十六国与西罗马腐化后的日耳曼诸蛮族何其相似，同样在七世纪的时候... 非常好的书，作者一反常态，以批驳吉本的角度提出了自己的观念。西罗马的灭亡更多的是体现在日耳曼人进入罗马以后，罗马无法同化这些这些人，数量庞大的蛮族不是自然而然的融合，而是由于更加野蛮的匈人而推到了罗马。罗马皇帝也是有自己的私心，但是没想到自己接纳了他们，而他们的嫡亲后裔灭掉了西罗马。三世纪是一个第一个游牧部落的高峰，西晋八王之乱后的五胡十六国与西罗马腐化后的日耳曼诸蛮族何其相似，同样在七世纪的时候恢复了帝国帝国。而中国的史料支持和唐朝的建立，让相比之下的西罗马显得无可奈何，这也是作者结合考古，内在动态的原因。 对于罗马帝国历史不清楚的，不建议当入门书，信息量太大了。 (展开)
0 有用 爱书 2021-04-22 20:52:24
论证可靠，详细叙述了自376年哥特人躲避匈人跨过多瑙河进入罗马帝国到476年末代西罗马皇帝被废这百年西罗马灰飞烟灭的历史。作者不认可世人的罗马病入膏肓论。通过与罗马接触300年壮大的日耳曼部落抓住了罗马自身局限性造成的危机才使得昔日不可一世的庞然巨物轰然倒塌。作者认同辩证唯物法？罗马的灭亡是内外因相结合