02-26-2014, 01:49 PM
The "Dark Ages" is a very useful heuristic device when dealing with the areas of the Western former empire. I think what happened was there were a revisions and a few people went overboard with it as they are wont to do. Now what tends to happen is whenever one throws the term around outside academia one meets this smug idiotic "oh we don't think of it like that anymore..." I don't know who "we" is meant to be in this situation but it is most certainly still used. It's like the whole BUT WHO IS A CELT term the archaeologists have started. Well, linguistics nicked that whole field in the bud when...a century ago? more?
Keep reading Mommsen. I know his work is very old and updated but in terms of simply citing documentary evidence he remains useful and neat. Its also very important for the sake of intellectual history to read old books now and then and not just the more up to date one. Toynbee may tell us little of anything about Greece nowadays but its useful for telling us what people in those days thought they knew and felt about Greece, if that makes sense.
For more up to date work just grab anything by Chris Wickham. He's a medievalist rather than a Classicist by training and has an admirably broad sweep, rather rooted in material culture. He's famous for his work on Italy but he wrote a wonderful popular book "The Inheritance of Rome" which even manages to discuss things like the Querolus. Heavily recommended and I think he goes on even to cite changes in interpretations over the years.
Keep reading Mommsen. I know his work is very old and updated but in terms of simply citing documentary evidence he remains useful and neat. Its also very important for the sake of intellectual history to read old books now and then and not just the more up to date one. Toynbee may tell us little of anything about Greece nowadays but its useful for telling us what people in those days thought they knew and felt about Greece, if that makes sense.
For more up to date work just grab anything by Chris Wickham. He's a medievalist rather than a Classicist by training and has an admirably broad sweep, rather rooted in material culture. He's famous for his work on Italy but he wrote a wonderful popular book "The Inheritance of Rome" which even manages to discuss things like the Querolus. Heavily recommended and I think he goes on even to cite changes in interpretations over the years.
Jass
