It is a huge book, but never a boring book. It is such a strange attractor that every time I touch this book, I am in the danger of sitting in front of my desk for a whole day. It is so elegantly written that I almost can regard it as the peer of the almost inimitable "Decline and Fall" by Gibbon.
Every time I read this book, I am so absorbed by this book that I often forget to take notes! However, somehow, I managed to resist the temptation to bury my nose in the book forever.
First, I want to take notes on some geographical coordinates of the continent, or, more accurately, the peninsula. I am always weak at the rivers, so here I list the important rivers:
Tagus, Guadalquivir, Loire, Seine, Rhone, Rhine, Po, Danube, Maritsa, Diester, Dnieper, Volga, Don, Donets, Elbe, Vistula, Niemen, Dvina, Ebro, Severn, and Thames.
Mountains:
Central Massif, Midi, Pyrenees, etc.
This book was published in 1996 by HarperPerennial, a division of Harper Collins. It covers the history of Europe from prehistory to 1992. The book was divided into the following twelve chapters:
1. Peninsula: Environment and Prehistory
2. Hellas: Ancient Greece
3. Roma: Ancient Rome, 753 BC—AD 337
4. Origo: The Birth of Europe, AD c.330—800
5. Medium: The Middle Age, c.750—1270
6. Pestis: Christendom in Crisis, c.1250—1493
7. Renatio: Renaissances and Reformations, c.1450—1670
8. Lumen: Enlightenment and Absolutism, c.1650—1789
9. Revolutio: A Continent in Turmoil, c.1770—1815
10. Dynamo: Powerhouse of the World, 1815—1914
11. Tenebrae: Europe in Eclipse, 1914—1945
12. Divisa et Indivisa: Europe Divided and Undived, 1945—1991
This is a huge book, more than 1,200 pages set in small type. However, it is not intended as a reference book, instead, it can be read like a novel, it is to be read, not to be referred. Actually, it is a page-turner.
I quickly browsed through chapter 4, 7, 8, origo, renatio, and lumen. I especially interested in renatio, the Renaissances. It is the age of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Filippo Brunelleschi (1379-1446), Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), Petrarch, Boccaccio, Michelangelo Buonarroti (1474-1564), Martin Luther (1483-1546). The age of significant changes and the birth of modern art and science.
To get a clear picture of the peoples of Europe, the chapter 4, origo is essential. It described the big migration during the late stage and after the fall of the Roman Empire. Without reading this chapter, one can never get a clear picture of the cultural and ethnic Europe.
In this period, Europe as a community, began to take form in the form of Christendom. This is a period of the dying years of the Roman Empire and the rising of Christiaality. At last, Byzantium Empire breaks its ties with the Latin part of the Empire, although under the reigh of Justinian, it once restore the fading glory of the Roman Empire.
Some noticed personalities: Boethius (c.480-525), which was also described in Boorstin's Creator. His work, written in the jail before his death sentence, Consolations of Philosophy, was highly accalaimed.
This is a time of great migrations, the tribes are: Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Suevi, Huns, Vandals, Bulgars, Gepids, Slavs, Finns, Balts, Angles, Saxons, Scots, Celts, Franks, Alemans, Burgundians, Lombards, Bretons, Avars, Alans, Magyars. Bulgars are slavicized Turks. They belongs to Germanic tribes, Celts, Slavs, or Asian origined, such as Avars, Huns, Avars, Alans.
Attila the Hun (c.404-53), disturbed the Roman Empire greatly, finally was defeated by on the Catalaunian Plains near Châlons by Aetius.
Clovis (c.466-511), Merovech's grandson, founded the Merovingian realm.
The end of West part the Empire, 476, last emperor, Romulus Augustulus.
Justinian (r. 527-65), restored most part of the Roman Empire, Italy, North Africa by his generals, Belisarius and Narses. Justinian's consort, Theodora, is an interesting woman. By Procopius in the "Secret History", Theodora once regretted 'that God had not endowed her with more orifices to give more pleasure to more people at the same time.' Anyway, she turned out to be intelligent and energetic, and of great help to Justinitan.
Byzantium historians Procopius and Anna Porphyrogeneta (1083-1154) are noticed.
The rise of Islam, 622-778, was described, I remembered Gibbon also sheds light on this prophet. By forming a barrier, Islamism helped to define the Christendom, therefore, Europe.
In 711, Al-Tariq crossed Gibraltar Strait, began to build his Moorish Cordoba emirate, which became a leaning and commercial center in the centuries to come.
Charles Martel (c.688-741),
A series of Christian General Consils, began at Nicaea in 325, defined the heresy sects. The last one held in 787 at Nicaea. Monophysitism, Pelagianism, Arianism, Nectorianism, all condemned as heresy.
A lot parts of Europ has been converted during this period.
Bede (673-735) wrote "History of the English Church and People". Bede is a monk of Jarrow in Northumbria. The book is the monuments of the age.
Cassiodorus, or Flavius Magnus Aurelius Senator (c.485-580) was noticible for his effort to preserve the classical learning during a turmoil age.
In this chapter, the ethnic groups and languages are discussed.
Historically this land was referred as Scythia or Sarmatia, after the nomads once roaming on the land. Major rivers, Dniester, Dnieper, Don, Donets, and the fertile loess soil, made this land a major grain purveyor in Europe. However, because its strategic location, it is constantly contested and controled by the major powers in Europe and Asia: Huns, Avars, Magyars, Vikings, or known as Varangians here, Poles, Lithuanians, Germans, Turks, and Finally, after 1992, the Ukrainians themselves.
Like all the people, Ukrainians love their lands:
When I die, make me a grave
High on an ancient mound
In my own beloved Ukraine,
In the steppeland without bound,
Whence one sees the endless
Expanse of the wheatfields
And the steep banks of Dnipro's shore:
Whence one hears the stentorian roar
Of the surging river
As it bears away to the far blue sea
Our oppressors' blood.
Then will I leave hills and fields for eternity
To stand before God Almighty
And to make my peace in prayer,
Till that time, it's my destiny
To know nothing of God.
First make my grave, then arise
To sunder your chains
And bless your freedom
In the flux of evil foremen's veins!
At last, in that great family
Young and free.
Do not forget. But with good intent
Speak quietly of me.
Feeling helpless in front of Russians, Poles, and Germans, sometimes they turned their rage towards the weaker. Pogroms happened here as well as in Poland, Germany, and other lands.
Go Home |
Back to Readings
August 22, 2003