Book review: The World of the Huns
Maenchen-Helfen, Otto J. The World of the Huns: studies in their history and culture / ed. Max Knight. (California, 1973)
I've had this book for years-part of the loot from my father's library-but never read it through, only looking up specific references. But it's been cited as a basic work in so much of my recent reading on the period (Heather, Wolfram, et al.) that I felt it finally deserved a sit-down read-through. It is...problematic.
First off, Maenchen-Helfen died before completing his manuscript; Knight, the editor, did a pretty good job assembling the author's remaining notes into coherent chapters, but from time to time you run across notes like "[The manuscript breaks off here in mid-sentence]" or footnotes that lead nowhere. Not fair to judge the total worth of the book by how well it's organized, is what I'm saying.
The first half, covering the history, economy, society, and so on, of the Huns is good and readable (even if I don't always agree with it). The later chapters on religion, art, and language are less so: they become just catalogues, pages and pages of items, more than enough documentation for the one- or two-paragraph summary conclusion. The chapter on Race, mostly citing studies of skull measurements by German scholars of the 30s and 40s, is just embarrassing to read nowadays. If anyone out there wants to specialize in Hunnish cauldrons, or loop-mirrors, or onomastics, and compare and contrast them with Turkic, Sarmatian, or Mongol cauldrons, loop-mirros, or onomastics, then this book will be crucial for them; for the general historian, not so much.
I was right all along: a good reference book, a great one for some particular topics of material culture; incredibly important groundwork in the field, especially illuminating the problems with our primary sources; copious notes and superlative bibliography; but ultimately the tree:forest ratio is just too high. Two woofs.
Which isn't to say he can't turn a nice phrase from time to time. For example:
No Greek or Roman knew where the Attilanic Huns came from. Ammianus Marcellinus placed their home beyond the Maeotis, the Sea of Azov, "near the ice-bound Ocean" (XXXI, 3, 1), which sheds some light on his geographic notions but none on the Huns. - p. 444, "Early Huns in Eastern Europe."
I've had this book for years-part of the loot from my father's library-but never read it through, only looking up specific references. But it's been cited as a basic work in so much of my recent reading on the period (Heather, Wolfram, et al.) that I felt it finally deserved a sit-down read-through. It is...problematic.
First off, Maenchen-Helfen died before completing his manuscript; Knight, the editor, did a pretty good job assembling the author's remaining notes into coherent chapters, but from time to time you run across notes like "[The manuscript breaks off here in mid-sentence]" or footnotes that lead nowhere. Not fair to judge the total worth of the book by how well it's organized, is what I'm saying.
The first half, covering the history, economy, society, and so on, of the Huns is good and readable (even if I don't always agree with it). The later chapters on religion, art, and language are less so: they become just catalogues, pages and pages of items, more than enough documentation for the one- or two-paragraph summary conclusion. The chapter on Race, mostly citing studies of skull measurements by German scholars of the 30s and 40s, is just embarrassing to read nowadays. If anyone out there wants to specialize in Hunnish cauldrons, or loop-mirrors, or onomastics, and compare and contrast them with Turkic, Sarmatian, or Mongol cauldrons, loop-mirros, or onomastics, then this book will be crucial for them; for the general historian, not so much.
I was right all along: a good reference book, a great one for some particular topics of material culture; incredibly important groundwork in the field, especially illuminating the problems with our primary sources; copious notes and superlative bibliography; but ultimately the tree:forest ratio is just too high. Two woofs.
Which isn't to say he can't turn a nice phrase from time to time. For example:
No Greek or Roman knew where the Attilanic Huns came from. Ammianus Marcellinus placed their home beyond the Maeotis, the Sea of Azov, "near the ice-bound Ocean" (XXXI, 3, 1), which sheds some light on his geographic notions but none on the Huns. - p. 444, "Early Huns in Eastern Europe."