The World of Late Antiquity AD 150-750

(Copied from my annotated bibliography) This book is a compilation of a series of named lectures, Carl Newell Jackson Lectures given at Harvard in 1976. In these lectures Brown attempts to trace the emergence in the second, third and fourth centuries, of features that formed the definitive Late Antique style of religion, culture and social life. Each of the four chapters represents a distinct lecture which show internal unity. The first chapter covers the “Debate on the Holy” which studies the rise of Christianity and her holy men. The second chapter, titled “Age of ambition”, analyzes how the political elite gained power. In the third chapter, “Rise of the Friends of God”, Brown discusses how religious leaders gained power over secular leaders including the effect of visions and dreams. Brown closes the book with the chapter “From the heavens to the Desert” which discusses the role of religious ascetics who retreated to the deserts of Egypt. This book suffers from a lack of a distinct thesis to unite the four chapters. While Brown briefly mentions his thesis, stated above, in the first chapter, the third and fourth chapters have very little to with each other and the overall thesis. The last chapter especially shares very little with the previous three. Another detractor is Brown’s writing style. He rarely makes a clear, distinct point. His sentences stretch over several lines and often hold internal contradictions. The book is exceptionally well documented and includes an index much clearer than the text. Due to the ambiguity of language I would not use this work again.

(copied from my annotated bibliography) With this book, Brown hopes that by studying the social and cultural change of the Late Antique period, he could inform the reader as to how and why the Late Antique world came to differ from that of the Classical. He also hopes to show how these changes determined the evolution of society of that time period and what life was like for the average Late Antique Roman citizen. Brown first sketches the public changes that occurred between 200 and 400 AD before analyzing the less public changes in religious attitudes and how they affected social and economic conditions. In the second half of the book Brown discusses the decline of the West, Byzantium before briefly mentioning new participants in the area such as the Arab Muslims. The text exhibits clear focus on what life was like for an average citizen of the time and how it changed. Brown does this by contrasting life of the Late Antique to the Classical and thus fulfills most of his stated thesis. Brown does not, however, provide much evidence of how the changes of the Late Antique period affected the evolution of society into Medieval Europe. Additionally, the highly embellished word choice and syntax prevent a clear and definite point from emerging. The internal structure of each chapter is difficult to determine because the key point for a paragraph often hides within the middle. Also, he states an intention to direct more attention to the Eastern Empire but devotes only one chapter to it. The book does include extensive endnotes and an index but I would not use the book again due to the abstruseness of the text.