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  • Alaric the Goth

  • An Outsider's History of the Fall of Rome
  • Written by: Douglas Boin
  • Narrated by: Chris MacDonnell
  • Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
  • 3.7 out of 5 stars (6 ratings)

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Alaric the Goth

Written by: Douglas Boin
Narrated by: Chris MacDonnell
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Publisher's Summary

Denied citizenship by the Roman Empire, a soldier named Alaric changed history by unleashing a surprise attack on the capital city of an unjust empire. Stigmatized and relegated to the margins of Roman society, the Goths were violent "barbarians" who destroyed "civilization," at least in the conventional story of Rome's collapse. But a slight shift of perspective brings their history, and ours, shockingly alive.

Alaric grew up near the river border that separated Gothic territory from Roman. He survived a border policy that separated migrant children from their parents, and he was denied benefits he likely expected from military service. In stark contrast to the rising bigotry, intolerance, and zealotry among Romans during Alaric's lifetime, the Goths, as practicing Christians, valued religious pluralism and tolerance.

The marginalized Goths preserved virtues of the ancient world that we take for granted. The three nights of riots Alaric and the Goths brought to the capital struck fear into the hearts of the powerful, but the riots were not without cause. Combining vivid storytelling and historical analysis, Douglas Boin reveals the Goths' complex and fascinating legacy in shaping our world.
©2020 Douglas Boin (P)2020 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
Historical Rome
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  • A
  • 2021-02-06

only okay...

I chose this book as it seemed well reviewed and a new take on the famous fall of Rome. That said I was not a huge fan for the following reasons :
- the author's objective is clear to change the narrative that the Roman Empire is seen as the 'good guys'. That said he does not present a more balanced account, he just flips the script with the Romans seemingly being all bad and the Goths being a tolerant and good people. He also seems to judge the Romans very harshly by modern standards of pluralism.
- as the author admits at the start, there are major gaps in the information about Alaric's life. So it feels to me as not a story about him, but a story about this time in the Roman Empire with random facts and assumptions about Alaric.
- I found the author's tendency to jump around in time to make this book difficult to follow especially in audio form.
To summarize this is not a bad book, but it is not one I really enjoyed or would recommend

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