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Article: Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe.(Book review)
- Article from:
- The Historian
- Article date:
- March 22, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 Phi Alpha Theta, History Honor Society, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe. By William Rosen. (New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, 2007. Pp. 367. $27.95.)
As a longtime editor and publishing executive, the author of this book could have made his first book a model of popular history. Instead, Justinian's Flea exemplifies most of the defects of popular history today.
The author discusses, in no logical order, the reign of the Byzantine emperor Justinian (527-565 AD), the sixth-century bubonic plague, and various themes in Eurasian history, inserting bits of argument so disorganized that they defy summarizing. Apparently aiming at an informal but erudite style, William Rosen ...