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| Terry Jones' Barbarians: An Alternative Roman History | 
| Authors: Terry Jones, Alan Ereira
Publisher: BBC Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $8.55
You Save: $6.40 (43%)
New (23) from $8.55
Avg. Customer Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 345390
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 4.9 x 1.2
ISBN: 056353916X
Dewey Decimal Number: 937.06
EAN: 9780563539162
ASIN: 056353916X
Publication Date: November 1, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New. Delivery is usually 5 - 8 working days from order, International is by Royal Mail Airmail
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 11-12 of 12 | | « PREV | | |
 "What if, instead of suckling Romulus and Remus, the wolf had eaten them?" August 2, 2006
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
Terry Jones' Barbarians takes a completely fresh approach to Roman history. Not only does it offer us the chance to see the Romans from a non-Roman perspective, it also reveals that most of the people written off by the Romans as uncivilized, savage and barbaric were in fact organized, motivated and intelligent groups of people, with no intentions of overthrowing Rome and plundering its Empire.
So you think you know everything about the Romans? They gave us sophisticated road systems, chariots and the modern-day calendar. And of course they had to contend with barbarian hordes that continually threatened the peace, safety and prosperity of their Empire. Didn't they? In his new book and the accompanying four-part BBC Two television series Terry Jones argues that we have been sold a false history of Rome that has twisted our entire understanding of our own history. Terry asks what did the Romans ever do for us?
This is the story of Roman history as seen by the Britons, Gauls, Germans, Greeks, Persians and Africans. The Vandals didn't vandalize - the Romans did. The Goths didn't sack Rome - the Romans did. Attila the Hun didn't go to Constantinople to destroy it, but because the Emperor's daughter wanted to marry him. And far from civilizing the societies they conquered the Romans often destroyed much of what they found. Terry Jones travels round the geography of the Roman Empire and through 700 years of history - bringing wit, irreverence, passion and the very latest scholarship to transform our view of the legacy of the Roman Empire and the creation of the modern world. Welcome to history from a different point of view.
This is a much thicker and more scholarly work than Medieval Lives, but no less humorous (sidesplitting, in fact). I sincerely hope both the BBC2 productions of Barbarians and of Medieval Lives come available on DVD, and soon!
What Did the Romans Ever Do For Us? July 22, 2006
13 out of 14 found this review helpful
In "Barbarians," Terry Jones and Alan Ereira finally answer the question posed in "Monty Python's Life of Brian": "What did the Romans ever do for us?" "The answer," according to the authors, "is not usually very nice."
Jones and Ereira explain that while there are many books setting out the history of Rome from the Roman perspective, there is no general history in English that tells the tale from the viewpoint of the so-called "barbarians." This book is their attempt to remedy this omission, and it recounts the history of Rome as experienced by the Atlantic Celts, the Germans (including the Dacians), the Hellenes (Greeks and Persians), the Huns and others who encountered the pointy end of Roman civilization. The message is that the Romans were not so much bringers of civilization as destroyers of advanced societies, not innovators but relentless conservatives who deliberately suppressed the hard-earned knowledge of the peoples they conquered. In Tacitus' famous phrase, the Romans had a habit of making a wasteland and calling it peace--at least until they encountered the equally ruthless Parthian and Sassanian empires.
"Barbarians" is "popular history" (it accompanies a BBC TV series), and the effort to tell the story from a non-Roman point of view sometimes lapses into exaggeration--for instance, I'm skeptical that the Greeks were really on the verge of an "industrial revolution" before being rolled by the Romans. Still, Jones (of Monty Python fame) and Ereira are witty racontuers--their latest book is a highly readble and surprisingly illuminating account of the ancient world that will raise the hackles of Romanophiles everywhere.
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