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This book looks at the interaction between the Vandals and the Roman Empire, and in particular their part in the decline and fall of the Western Empire, which saw them invade Gaul, cross into Hispania, and then invade the richest province of the Western Empire, Roman North Africa, setting up a kingdom that lasted for 100 years. The author’s main argument is that the Vandals were actually rather more welcome in North Africa than most of our sources suggest.
For me the author spends rather too long on the background material. I can understand the idea of spending some time explaining how the Romans saw barbarians and themselves, and an overview of some of the earlier clashes between the Romans and barbarian groups is a good idea, but here we get quite detailed histories of the Gallic sack of Rome, the Cimbrian wars, the Varian disaster and the Marcomannic wars. The aim is to give an idea of how the Romans saw the barbarian world, or at least the military threat posed by them.
We don’t get started on the Vandals themselves until about a third of the way through the book. We then get interesting sections on their invasion of France and Spain, the Roman reaction to it, why they crossed into North Africa, their successful two stage conquest of the Western Empire’s African provinces, the nature of their rule. We then move onto the Byzantine re-conquest and finish with a look at the Arab conquest. This is all interesting material, and this is a good book on the Vandals. My one criticism is that we don’t get enough material on Vandal North Africa. The author clearly knows more about the topic than we see here, and a good archaeological survey of what was happening in this period would help support his case. Otherwise a good book.
Chapters
1 – The Romans
2 – The Barbarians
3 – Vandal Origins
4 – Vandal Migration
5 – Vandal Conquest
6 – Vandal Apocalypse
Author: Simon Elliott
Edition: Hardcover
Pages: 240
Publisher: Casemate
Year: 2024