If you are a member of an institution with an active account, you may be able to access content in one of the following ways: Get help with access Institutional accessĪccess to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. What are we then to make of the fact that eight out of the previous eleven male emperors were deposed or forced to abdicate? Thus we are told that Eirene’s overthrow ‘marks the fragility of female power’ (p. The compression of the material into around 250 pages, however, also means that the explanations added to examples are sometimes less than convincing. Although it is difficult to reconcile an approach that reflects complexity on the ground with a broad overview, he often manages to provide both. He squeezes an impressive amount of material into the book. Instead of trying to provide full coverage, Wickham uses illustrative examples to drive home the points he makes.

Although Wickham has read prodigiously (and acknowledges the input of many people), writes with great erudition on many issues and demonstrates the dynamism of the period, in the end the book offers neither a new vision nor a superior analytic approach.Ī strong authorial voice weaves together evaluative summaries of debates (such as the one over the feudal revolution), the presentation of key issues and a chronological history of the period. Since outstanding overviews already exist (such as Clifford Backman’s The Worlds of Medieval Europe and The Oxford History of Medieval Europe, not to mention books covering the earlier, central or later medieval period), the reason to write a new one would be either to propose a bold new thesis or to provide an analytic scheme that surpasses existing ones. Chris Wickham is the author of many ground-breaking books on the early medieval period his latest, therefore, is very different, in being an overview of the Middle Ages.

Medieval europe by chris wickham