The Emergence of Europe in the First Millennium A.D. From the Fall of the Ancient World and the Emergence of Europe: the New Great History of the Migration Period from the Huns to the Vikings Late Roman decadence and marauding Vandals: these are the clichés about the so-called Migration Period. But how did the new cultural entity of Europe emerge in the first millennium from the highly developed Roman south and the barbarian north? Around the time of Christ's birth, Europe was divided into the highly developed south of the Mediterranean cultures and the undeveloped north of Germanic and Slavic-speaking tribal cultures. The latter knew neither writing nor stone settlement, a standing army or a monetary economy, let alone cities with fire brigades and refuse collection. How could the "onslaught of the barbarians" deal a death blow to the Roman Empire? Peter Heather reimagines this old question in the light of insights into ethnogenesis and modern migration research. From the Hun storm to the Vikings, he examines the dynamics of European migratory movements. The social and economic interactions between the two cultural areas changed them fundamentally and in the long term allowed them to become a new cultural entity: the Europe we still know today in an evolved form.
Peter Heather was born in Northern Ireland in 1960. He studied history at New College Oxford. Lectured at University College, London.
