Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe

from NielsenGW

When boats arrived in Constantinople from Egypt in 541 AD, they weren't carrying just exotic foods and trinkets. Rats and fleas from the lower holds scrambled into the new landscape, and with them came the plague. The disease swept through port cities, leaving corpses riddled with black buboes in...

from MiaCulpa

Interesting that I had never heard of Belisaurus, Khosro the great, Narses and the like, even though I'm an eager reader of history. This book is more about history than the plague, which, to be frank, it doesn't spend a lot of time on. Not that this is a bad thing because, after all, who wants t...

from romanccm

This was a really good read- extremely well written and organized. Much of the history was familiar to me from elsewhere, I don't think Rosen breaks new ground here but his synthesis of the cultural, historical, technological and, of course, bacteriologic state of the 6th century Roman empire was...

from atozgrl

Interesting, but not the easiest read. Rosen's writing style includes lots of asides and parenthetical statements, which doesn't always flow well. I learned a lot of history about the end of the Roman Empire and the beginning of modern European countries that I did not know.

from Farree

I have been putting off reading this since August 15, 2015 (or so), because I wanted a little more coverage of the Roman Empire (and I don't currently have Gibbon in my library). I got that earlier history from 'The Climax of Rome,' by Michael Grant, which I recently finished and reviewed. Okay. ...