books 2008: Justinian's Flea, by William Rosen
First of all, here's a conversation that illustrates the awesomeness of my family:
Me: I'm reading a book about the first epidemic of bubonic plague, during the Byzantine era!
Mom and Dad, together: OOOH!
Aren't they fabulous?
Anyway, this was an awesome book. Full title: Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe. It took me well over a week to read the whole thing, and it kept my interest the whole time. It's about (as I told my parents) the first epidemic of the plague, which occurred in late antiquity. But it's also about what the world was like at that time, and how the plague completely changed things. If the plague hadn't hit the Roman empire in 540, Rosen argues, all of Europe as we know it would be different. Justinian, the emperor, had reconquered lost lands, built the Hagia Sophia, restructured the law, and was generally being an awesome emperor, on his way to reclaiming Rome's lost glory for Byzantium. Then the plague struck, wiping out probably half or more of the population of the empire. Fewer soldiers meant fewer wars of conquest, and fewer people to defend the territories. Fewer farmers meant less food, more starving people, and a complete restructuring of how society worked in the places that would become Europe.
Rosen covers everything: early Christian philosophy, military history, the economics of the silk trade, epidemiology, the economics of the silk trade, and more. It's a really fascinating story of not just a plague, but a whole culture, and the cultures that surrounded it, and how they changed at this pivotal moment in history.
(As a side note, fans of Guy Gavriel Kay might be intrigued to know that Justinian is the emperor on whom the Sarantine Mosaic is based. His queen Theodora really was a prostitute and dancer before she married him. It was very cool to get a look at the real historical people who inspired Kay's books, and the history was made more vivid to me because I already loved those characters. I'm planning on looking up a biography of Justinian and Theodora so I can learn more.)
Me: I'm reading a book about the first epidemic of bubonic plague, during the Byzantine era!
Mom and Dad, together: OOOH!
Aren't they fabulous?
Anyway, this was an awesome book. Full title: Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe. It took me well over a week to read the whole thing, and it kept my interest the whole time. It's about (as I told my parents) the first epidemic of the plague, which occurred in late antiquity. But it's also about what the world was like at that time, and how the plague completely changed things. If the plague hadn't hit the Roman empire in 540, Rosen argues, all of Europe as we know it would be different. Justinian, the emperor, had reconquered lost lands, built the Hagia Sophia, restructured the law, and was generally being an awesome emperor, on his way to reclaiming Rome's lost glory for Byzantium. Then the plague struck, wiping out probably half or more of the population of the empire. Fewer soldiers meant fewer wars of conquest, and fewer people to defend the territories. Fewer farmers meant less food, more starving people, and a complete restructuring of how society worked in the places that would become Europe.
Rosen covers everything: early Christian philosophy, military history, the economics of the silk trade, epidemiology, the economics of the silk trade, and more. It's a really fascinating story of not just a plague, but a whole culture, and the cultures that surrounded it, and how they changed at this pivotal moment in history.
(As a side note, fans of Guy Gavriel Kay might be intrigued to know that Justinian is the emperor on whom the Sarantine Mosaic is based. His queen Theodora really was a prostitute and dancer before she married him. It was very cool to get a look at the real historical people who inspired Kay's books, and the history was made more vivid to me because I already loved those characters. I'm planning on looking up a biography of Justinian and Theodora so I can learn more.)