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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Alaric the Goth: An Outsider's History of the Fall of Rome

Alaric the Goth: An Outsider's History of the Fall of Rome

Boin, Douglas

Paperback

Historical FiguresAncient Rome

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 039386751X
ISBN13: 9780393867510
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: Aug 31 2021
Pages: 272
Weight: 0.48
Height: 0.82 Width: 5.57 Depth: 8.30
Language: English

Stigmatized and relegated to the margins of Roman society, the Goths were violent barbarians who destroyed civilization, at least in the conventional story of Rome's collapse. But a slight shift of perspective brings their history, and ours, shockingly alive.

Alaric grew up near the river border that separated Gothic territory from Roman. He survived a border policy that separated migrant children from their parents, and he was denied benefits he likely expected from military service. Romans were deeply conflicted over who should enjoy the privileges of citizenship. They wanted to buttress their global power, but were insecure about Roman identity; they depended on foreign goods, but scoffed at and denied foreigners their own voices and humanity. In stark contrast to the rising bigotry, intolerance, and zealotry among Romans during Alaric's lifetime, the Goths, as practicing Christians, valued religious pluralism and tolerance. The marginalized Goths, marked by history as frightening harbingers of destruction and of the Dark Ages, preserved virtues of the ancient world that we take for granted.

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