Pat Southern. The Roman Empire from Severus to Constantine. Routledge, ISBN 0-415-23944-3.

Just as I was prepared to condemn all British historiography as a hopeless preserve of upper-class twits, I took the book by Pat Southern about the most interesting, in my view, and the least documented period of the development of the Roman Empire. Noticeably, she works outside of the academia. The book is a COMPILATION, heavily relying on French historian M. Christol, but it is eminently readable and wonderfully illustrated by Trish Boyle. My only criticism of the illustrations are maps, many of which are given without place labels as in XIX Classical Gymnasium geography class (pupils had to memorize all rivers and cities, etc.). But this is a brilliant book. Prurient details and personal eccentricities of the lives of Emperors and their entourage are omitted in true Victorian fashion, even for Heliogabalus (above). Even the military matters, which are frequently garbled by academic historians, while the professional military relies on less-than-trustworthy archival sources, are being competently described. But should I remember that 'vexillations' are the detachments of 'vexillarius' soldiers, i.e. the separate detachments of below-legion strength but having their own standard?  Yet many kudos to Pat and I am looking to find her other books in the libraries accessible to me.

David Luscombe and J. Riley-Smith. The New Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. IV, part I.

        A piece of surrealistic prose penned by a group (mostly British) of the right-wing Catholic intellectuals. 80% of the volume concerns the struggles of papacy for the temporal power and theological debates. Only the Chapters 2 and 3 deal with medieval society in a coherent way, rather than with the concerns of modern intellectuals. The wars and shifting realms--the usual subject of historical study--are omitted except for the Crusades and other "wars of liberation" against the infidels. Yet, the fate of these "infidels", Jews included, during and after their "liberation" is glossed over. The fates of 9/10 of the population, the peasants, most of whom, in the debated period were in different stages of servitude, is never discussed, ostensibly for the lack of verifiable material. Yet, the authors assert that certainly, high ranking lords and clerics looked after the best interests of these poor souls (Susan Reynolds). Barbarous tortures and executions of heretics are being declared spontaneous acts of rage by the mobs on the apostates. There is not a single statistical table in the entire book.

        Some subjects are discussed with considerable erudition. For instance, Chapters 18, Latin and vernacular literature (J. Ziolkowski) and Chapter 19, Architecture and visual arts (P. Kidson) are serving their purpose pretty well. Yet, even Kidson begins his chapter with a long polemic against deceased researchers of the past: Violet-le-Duc, Riegl and Warburger, who cannot defend themselves.