Barbarian invasions and the following dismemberment and fall of the Roman Empire have been the subject of interest not only of historians, but also of scholars and particulars. Claudio Azzara, professor of Medieval History of the University of Salerno deals, in the book “The barbarian invasions”, published in Divulgativa Collectanea Limitanea by the Publishing House University of Granada and University of Valencia, with the chain of migrations that started in the IV and V centuries of our era of people from Asia and the north of Europe and who laid the foundations for a new civilization we are heirs to.
Azzara does not only describe a historical event in a general way, but he also formulates a series of conjectures about the mistakes that all through history have possibly distorted this historical fact. The designation of this people, who put an end to an outdated Roman government rotten by internecine fights, is quite significant to understand the attitude of many historians to such invasions.
Barbarians and vandals are some of the disqualifying adjectives attributed to those nomads who from Eastern Europe and Asia destroyed the exquisite Roman society. Heterogeneity usually attributed to wide-ranging populations also makes understanding difficult. Claudio Azzara reveals in six chapters the last studies on such “barbarians”, on the different people who devastated Greek-Roman world, on how they settled in Italy, France, Bulgaria, until they extended throughout Europe in a development in which the “aculturization” process was not as extreme as we imagine.
The author is determined to bring to light particular aspects that allow to understand the events that took place for six centuries in Europe dismissing old myths forged by a historiography sometimes ruled and used by the political and ideological circumstances of the moment.
According to researchers, and Latin society, barbarians put an end to an exemplary civilization, the Roman. But, according to Norsemen and Germans, their people carried out a massive migration in search of something better. Be that as it may, Claudio Azzara reveals the intricate plot of an invasion from which a civilization aroused through a union of different cultures, maybe unified by religion, a society that gave rise to Middle Ages´ community. The author finishes his work with a series of particular conclusions on the fall of the Roman Empire and the “barbarism” of the invaders, and with an extensive catalogue of books on this subject.
Reference: Prof Claudio Azzara. Dipartimento di Latinità e Medioevo. Universidad de Salerno.
Phone number: 39/089/963089.
E-mail. clazzara@unisa.it
