The Mediterranean world in late antiquity, AD 395-600 - Averil Cameron

"The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity: AD 395-600" deals with the period commonly known as "late antiquity" - the fifth and sixth centuries. The Roman Empire in the west was splitting into separate Germanic kingdoms, while the Near East, still under Roman or Byzantine rule from Constantinople, maintained a dense population and flourishing urban culture until the Persian and Arab invasions of the early seventh century. The book is intended for teachers and students in both ancient and medieval history. Averil Cameron places her emphasis on the material and literary evidence for cultural change and offers a new and original challenge to traditional assumptions of "decline and fall" and "the end of antiquity". The book draws on the recent spate of scholarship on this period to discuss in detail controversial issues such as the capacity of the late Roman army, the late antique city and the nature of economic exchange and cultural life. With its extensive annotation, it provides a lively, and often critical introduction to earler approaches to the period.