Chris Wickham has passed away. Enormous loss for medieval studies.Let's honor him by discussing his body of work.
I've sort of had this on my reading list but I forget why I've been putting it off. Wasn't he one of those seething revisionist types?
>>18732350>seething revisionistThat's a good thing in the field of history.
>>18732365Oh, well. I think objectivity and intellectual honesty are good but to each their own.
>>18732129Oh man, he passed away? That's a real shame.Well, I read the book he wrote as an introduction to this one. And I found it informative, entertaining, and even funny at times. There's a section at the beginning where he discusses religious culture in the Christian East (as opposed to the chiefly pagan Europe), and he mentions hermits and saints getting asked for advice over inane nonsense and them getting angry about it. This goes along generally with a succint but very good portrait of what the Roman Empire was like just before everything fell apart. He then covers everything after chronologically, until around 1000 AD or 900 AD.I liked that he retains throughout it a comparative lens with the near east and North Africa that imo really grounds the entire work and puts everything he is covering in context as part of a larger whole.
>>18732350>seething revisionistIn what way? I'm out of the loop entirely
>>18732520There have been some medievalists with inferiority complex who object to the term "dark ages" and insist that it was akshully a super duper enlightened era.Wickham pops up in recommendation lists but I have been sort of postponing reading him because I have the vague impression that he is that type of person. I could be wrong though.
>>18732589So the main Wikipedia page about them is also seething revisionism?>As the accomplishments of the era came to be better understood in the 19th and the 20th centuries, scholars began restricting the 'Dark Ages' appellation to the Early Middle Ages>The majority of modern scholars avoid the term altogether because of its negative connotations, finding it misleading and inaccurate
>>18732598yeah, wikipedia is generally woke
>>18732599How is it woke? The "Dark Ages" are often treated as the antithesis to enlightenment and egalitarianism.
>>18732589He is not. He is very matter of fact and sober in understanding the era.
