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Calling the Late Romans!
#1
Hi all!
I need a volunteer to lead the discussion in the Ancient Warfare Book club on a new book: Michael Kulikowski's Rome's Gothic Wars, just published by Cambridge UP.
I expect this volunteer to write a review about this book on Romanarmy.com and post some critical questions or problems to invite discussion. A review copy will be supplied for free by Cambridge UP.

First come, first serve. Extensive knowledge of the era and these wars is requested. Proven ability to debate problems on RAT is recommended.
Greets!

Jasper Oorthuys
Webmaster & Editor, Ancient Warfare magazine
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#2
Yup. When do you need the review?
Robert Vermaat
MODERATOR
FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
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#3
Within a reasonable period after the reviewer receives the book (i.e.: tbd).
Greets!

Jasper Oorthuys
Webmaster & Editor, Ancient Warfare magazine
Reply
#4
Vorti has all the fun. :lol:
"Fugit irreparabile tempus" (Irrecoverable time glides away) Virgil

Ron Andrea
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#5
Well, if there are many interested people who want to discuss the book, sign in here and I can try and get a discount, although it's affordable to begin with ($25).
Greets!

Jasper Oorthuys
Webmaster & Editor, Ancient Warfare magazine
Reply
#6
I'd be interested, but I'll need to seek a copy here. Postage would kill any discount you managed to obtain.
"Fugit irreparabile tempus" (Irrecoverable time glides away) Virgil

Ron Andrea
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#7
Actually, I'd try to arrange any possible discount in the same way as the Blackwell's book: order straight from the publisher with a code. Cambridge UP is both in the US & the UK, so that problem really doesn't exist.
Greets!

Jasper Oorthuys
Webmaster & Editor, Ancient Warfare magazine
Reply
#8
No problem. I just ordered it from Amazon.com. Got it at a discount.
"Fugit irreparabile tempus" (Irrecoverable time glides away) Virgil

Ron Andrea
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#9
:lol: That works.
Greets!

Jasper Oorthuys
Webmaster & Editor, Ancient Warfare magazine
Reply
#10
PM me your address Robert.
Greets!

Jasper Oorthuys
Webmaster & Editor, Ancient Warfare magazine
Reply
#11
As promised!

[size=150:1dgzl4kf]ROME’S GOTHIC WARS – FROM THE THIRD CENTURY TO ALARIC[/size]
By Michael Kulikowsky
Cambridge University Press 2007, 225 pages, 4 maps.
ISBN o-521-84633-1


___________________________________

This book takes a fair bit of getting used to. The title is disappointing, with the dust jacket promisising an account of all wars between Rome and the Goths. But then a quick glance at the inside and the reader is set straight – the narrative halts after the sack of Rome. This is strange, as we shall see.
After a fast prologue of fourteen pages that tells of Alaric’s problems and motives before his historical sack of Rome, the first chapter which is in fact a slightly longer introduction. This is used by Kulikowski to address wide-ranging topics such as Gothic and Roman ‘identity’, the world outside Rome’s borders and the developments of the Empire during the third century.

So far, with almost a quarter of the book behind us, Kulikowsky has promised the reader quite a bit, (writing ‘as we shall see’ at least once on most pages), and the third chapter indeed takes a deep plunge into hard research to finally make good on those promises. Too bad, really, that we never receive a good direction to the actual spot where ‘we shall see’ what the author promised to show us! Also, it may seem a long detour to finally get to the Gothic wars themselves, and it is. The author first takes us back in time past the nineteenth-century and Renaissance views of historical science and the sources, before striking a dulling blow against the prime source of Gothic history, Jordanes. At this stage, I can only advise the reader to keep reading, for this is where Kulikowsky really earns his spurs.

Kulikowsky makes short shift of Jordanes’ myth of the Gothic migration out of Scandinavia all the way to Russia. Pushing aside this non-history as well as modern views that still support it, the author hones in on archaeology and the birthplace of the Goths as an ethnic group. We receive the author’s view of the Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov culture (try pronouncing that name!) and his conclusion that this cultural zone is where the culture which we can address as ‘Gothic’ really came into being. But did a Gothic people ever exist? Kulikowski seems of the opinion that they did, but not before the fifth century. He sees the Goths as primarily a product of Roman policies, a group grown together out of many, responding to waxing and waning of Roman power. Even the Goths that bring down the Romans at Adrianople coalesce out of unrelated groups before the famous battle and vanish thereafter. The Tervingi, in his view, were no coherent group, they had no royal line going back to Scandinavian origins, nor one that was even related to Alaric.

The trouble is, the book is far too short for Kulikowski too become convincing enough. And while he does not have to convince this reviewer, it is a shame that his explanation of this view receives such poor attention, for after all it is the author’s main topic. Even though the first part of the book is the most important one, he speeds through it as if there is no time to dwell. Maybe if the book had been twice as long, the author could have shown what his disagreement with those who support ‘ethnogenesis’ or similar views is really based on. Those who have read the works of, say, Liebesschütz, will not have heard much news.
The journey has taken us through half the book but even so leaves us with a feeling of broken promises.

The second half of this work is a riveting narrative that is very well told, even though it halts after the sack of Rome. Which is indeed strange, for Kulikowski’s main theme is that we can hardly speak of ‘the Goths’ until that campaign of Alaric is over!

The book is a good read though, which will be appealing to those who want to read more than a superficial account of Gothic history and the fall of the West Roman Empire.
____________________________________________
Robert Vermaat
MODERATOR
FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
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#12
I agree with Robert’s review of Michael Kulikowski, Rome’s Gothic Wars, Cambridge , 2007.

Kulikowski’s thesis that “the Roman empire create[d] the Goths as we know themâ€
"Fugit irreparabile tempus" (Irrecoverable time glides away) Virgil

Ron Andrea
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