I imagine I’ll be getting new subs thanks to the collaboration. If you are new, welcome! Here are two recent videos that may interest you: the first is on a potential new Roman emperor, and the second is on the question of barbarians in the late Roman army m.kzread.info/dash/bejne/q6t5sdZvoKuZiNY.html m.kzread.info/dash/bejne/mI6Crtmeptq2YbQ.html

@Zogerpogger

Жыл бұрын

Great video, I hope this collaboration brings many new viewers to this worthy channel! I am delighted to see a collab. on the theme "War is Hell", it is a topic not spoken of enough on KZread, where military history tends to dominate other areas of study. Ideas about honor and glory, meant to give some recompense, however scant, to those who had to endure war's horrors, can easily be misinterpreted as an ample reward for enduring combat. Great man narratives and undue fixation on strategy, tactics and minutae are common on this platform, and not only because monetization begets sanitized content. Overall I think this collaboration is a needed good for the KZread history community, and I'm pleased to see The Historian's Craft a part of it. I've been sharing this article in the comments of the videos of this collaboration because I think it is somewhat relevant to the collab's theme: www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1989/08/the-real-war-1939-1945/306374/. Many people recognize WW2 as hellish, but when thinking of the senseless deaths, utterly horrific nature, and lack of agency inheirent to combat, the Great War tends to come to mind more often. I feel this article helps dispell the moralizing mist that can cloud our view of WW2 combat, which allows us to fixate on the necessity of defeating the Axis and overlook the universal ill that is war. It is also just another excellent account of why war, in general, is hell. Sorry for posting this somewhat unrelated message under the pinned comment, I just hope it stirs some interesting discussion (given that this channel's audience seems suited for intelligent discourse) and I know this channel has videos about Imperial Japan so the article I hope isn't as irrelevant as it might otherwise be.

@LesangdesdieuX

Жыл бұрын

This was very interesting The barbarians didn't make the dark ages, the dark ages made the barbarians

It's always great to see highly specialized, no-filler videos on topics like this. I see many parallels to the Bronze Age Collapse, with a gradual movement to some sort of critical point, followed by a rapid implosion of complex systems. Gotta' admit, that small farm I've been thinking of starting somewhere on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan looks more attractive with each passing year......

@TheFallofRome

Жыл бұрын

Come to central NY! My wife and I are gonna start a farm to ride out the zombies. It’ll be well stocked with crops, spears, and rough collies 🐕

@Zogerpogger

Жыл бұрын

@@TheFallofRome This past year I started a small garden just to see what percentage of my caloric intake I could replace with home-grown food while exerting minimal effort. It only amounted to a few meals and some nice fresh herbs to supplement my diet. After a few years of work though I could see the overhead costs being mitigated (no more need for: construction of animal-proof pen, accumulation of compost, stockpiling of seeds, purchase of canning equipment) and enough experience aquired for it to start having a noticeable impact. If I had a wife and children it would likely be a lot easier xD. I've always wanted to start a community in the style of Nestor Makhno/The Diggers (of English Revolution fame), if things get bad I guess I'll head to central NY and hope that I am more valuable as a farm implement than as collie food!

@Zogerpogger

Жыл бұрын

I am close to the UP, let me know if you want help with that farm...such labor is made exponentionally more viable the more hands there are to effect it. I have always kept an eye out for people interested in departing from normative society and adopting subsistence agriculture if necessary. It is good to know there are other like-minds, especially close to home.

@Zogerpogger

Жыл бұрын

Also to add: I've always thought it would be really cool to create a self-sustaining history community, where we all farm together and stockpile books. We can also get internet by attaching a wirelesss modem to an atmospheric-condition-monitoring balloon! I may have gotten a bit too excited over these comments.

@qboxer

Жыл бұрын

@@Zogerpogger better know how to defend your community if that is the path you take.

"When it rains, it pours." This was a fascinating way to approach the prompt, thank you for doing this video! I would have assumed that people would 'shrink' during this period for obvious reasons, but never gave things like cattle and other animals thought! The fact that less well nourished and physically capable people would have to work harder for less resources really helps drive this home.

Got linked to this playlist by Atun-Shei films! Fantastic work, really shows how war really doesn't have winners for the people who have to fight in them.

@TheFallofRome

Жыл бұрын

Thank you!

@BiggestCorvid

Жыл бұрын

Check out Brandon F., The Redcoat, and the shogunate as well. It was fun seeing how many different push notifications I got for the same event. And I found 4 new channels to sub.

@Zogerpogger

Жыл бұрын

Hopefully this channel gets the audience it deserves from this collaboration.

@TheFallofRome

Жыл бұрын

@@Zogerpogger Here's hoping!

This is definitely the best video about the seizure of Africa by the Vandals and the consequnces of their actions, very detailed and raw and straight to the point without any sugar coating that would ruin the perspective on such events!

"The dogs of war were seldom on a leash" - Lawrence Keeley

The few times I’ve been beaten or robbed or taken advantage of have been very traumatic. I simply cannot even fathom the level of violence, cruelty and privation that out ancestors endured. Even our very recent ancestors. I hope people find these videos and think twice about casually spouting off about civil war. War is the ugliest of humanity.

Wow, decay like this to us today seems so extreme that we’ll only find it in fiction (Warhammer 40k being the most prominent one). Science and technical skill not essential to war vanishing, mass famine, the drastic decreasing life expectancy. And what seems to be “an eternity of carnage and slaughter”. I can’t imagine how absolutely and overwhelmingly shitty life would be then. It truly would be a horrible time for somebody with the misfortune to grow old without dying, to see safety and glory fail and vanish before your eyes. Also I was sent here by Atun-Shei.

@Tareltonlives

Жыл бұрын

It's amazing how even in 40K fans miss the actual point of the franchise being about corruption, genocide, extremism and complete devastation to both the galaxy and the very cultures within it. The premise is "let's have some black humor fun with a nihilistic disaster"

This channel has reached the point where I am comfortable liking videos before watching. It ensures I do indeed leave a like as there is a chance I'll become too engrossed in the topic at hand and forget! To all of you who just showed up due to the collaboration, let this comment serve as a positive review for the channel. I have learned quite a bit from The Historians Craft. If you appreciate nuaced discussion of source material and videos that are not so dry as to be virtual lectures, yet not so simplified as to be nothing more than near-incorrect eye-candy, this channel is worth your time.

@TheFallofRome

Жыл бұрын

Thank you! I appreciate that

I have always been very fascinated by this period of history since I read The Inheritance of Rome by Chris Wickham (whom I noticed you've also read!) and you did a wonderful job highlighting the bleak transformation of Western Europe during this time. Stellar work! Also, I never knew that the Ilopango eruption played such a huge role in the degradation of the world's climate, so learning about the consequences of that was really eye opening! Thank you!

@TheFallofRome

Жыл бұрын

Thanks! I love TIoR, it’s one of Wickham’s best books. If you want a deeper dive, Framing the Early Middle Ages is the bigger version of that book. For the volcanos, Harper’s “The Fate of Rome” is what I’d recommend reading. It was a major source for this video, chock-full of bio archaeology and climate data, but written for the non-specialist

@AncientAmericas

Жыл бұрын

@@TheFallofRome thanks! I've also read his book on medieval Europe but that one sounds really good too! I'll put the Harper one on my list!

@D_R757

Жыл бұрын

Beautiful to see two of my favorite creators interacting lol

I have a seminar on climate history at university right now and I had to read some journal articles for the time between 300-800 (ie from the late Roman climate pessimum and the ice age of late antiquity) in preparation for one of the courses. One of these was an archaeological study of the mortality rate in northern Gaul during the Ice Age of Late Antiquity. If I remember correctly the mortality rate was constant until the 530's, then increased rapidly and only dropped to pre-ice age levels in the mid 600's.

Here is the playlist for the rest of the videos in this collaboration! kzread.info/head/PLbGwg11hQxtnPCEzoUoK96DWrPWz7a1zh

I have watch all the vids on this playlist and I have to say that this is probably my favorite. I like that you used a time period most people gloss over and forget that real people had to live through all this violence and turmoil that was going on. Life must have sucked back then and I hope we never have to witness something like that again. Thanks for the great vid and keep up the good work!

Amazing video as always!

I have been waiting for this!

Amazing video man. Like how you brought a more broad scope to the subject and focused on how these changes affected people’s lives. Truly puts a new perspective on the Migration Period for me, as many more modern historical analyses tend to put forth that the common person’s life didn’t change much during the fall, but you’ve definitely changed my mind on that.

Your videos are amazing!

I think this may have been your best video. I’ve found it very difficult to find clear-cut information on the fall of Rome.

I wonder what Francis Pryor says these days. Otherwise, reminds of Peter Heather's conclusion in 'Goths and Romans 332-489'. He says the last chance for the Western Empire was lost at Cape Bon in 468 when a huge joint Roman fleet was destroyed, 1100 ships and 50,000 soldiers, intended to retake North Africa. He marks Cape Bon as the end of the Western empire. 'Breaking the spine' is a great metaphor.

@TenOrbital

Жыл бұрын

The loss of those forces reduced both halves of the empire to near-bankruptcy for a generation. Or actual, in the case of the West.

so glad I found this channel

Great job Michael !!!

Another excellent video! 👍

Great video

Very interesting. Great work!

Fascinating!

very interesting.

Nice video

Im just a casual viewer,but i would love if u decide to put relative videos on seperate playlist

This great, this is a swell video

Hey, could you make a video on Kita Ikki & intellectuals ? Thanks

@TheFallofRome

Жыл бұрын

I’m planning that one already, actually!

@pierren___

Жыл бұрын

@@TheFallofRome Oh thank God !

So i guess this is the actual "Dark Age"? Not a generalized several-century stretch between the fall of the WRE and the Crusades but a tighter century-long band of time between the WRE having its legs cut out from under it up to Justinian's reconquests-- Where you see legitimate degeneration in European societies' ability to maintain not simply material prosperity but the same degrees of outright bodily safety and health compared to generations before it, with even natural disasters having generational effects.

@TheFallofRome

Жыл бұрын

Pretty much, yeah. It goes a bit further, into the very early 600s, and really Europe doesn't quite reach high point Roman era prosperity again until about the 1400s

@jackcrasher6945

Жыл бұрын

Well I would actually only limit the Dark Ages to the Ice Age of Late Antiquity (ca. 536-660), since we have a certain continuity at least up to their beginning (536). This catastrophe is often compared to the climatic effects of a nuclear war (or up to three -> since we have data that could indicate up to three volcanic eruptions) by various environmental scientists who have studied this catastrophe.

@TheFallofRome

Жыл бұрын

@@jackcrasher6945 that’s actually a fairly useful working definition, although I might actually extend it to about 700, at least in parts of britisn

15:10 The Germanic peoples essentially are the Western Roman Empire's version of the Sea Peoples.

Found this video very informative. Really learned a lot and it is incredible how insanely violent the last centuries of the western empire were especially for the Italian peninsula. That said I do wonder if it's fair to argue that the collapse of the empire was more violent than in the empire's heyday. Sure for the average Italian one became more likely to be weaker, more malnourished and more likely to be murdered, but in the provinces what was the average life like during the height of the empire? Especially when heavy taxes were levied, or when your capital had been burned down or your entire population was forcibly relocated. I find it fascinating how empires, because of their complexity and grandeur, overshadow the violence they are built upon. For example I think it was during Trajans day that the entire population of Cyrene was genocided and then replaced with another population. I wonder if we find layers of black earth or archeological evidence of a more violent and sick society, during the grinding decades of conquest in North Africa, Western Europe or Britan. Did the average lifestyle of a Frank, Gaul, Breton decline during these periods of war and colonization?

Atun-Shei brought me here

Terrific video on a fascinating subject!

Three cheers for bioarchaeology and data-driven, wide-angle archaeological analyses! I'm curious about these 'dark earth' layers, cause I only ever used a layer of ash across several buildings (or most of / an entire site) as a clear 'destruction layer' - these additional bones you mention being present, they're talking about human remains right? The description seems like a pretty reasonable indicator of decline, but you can't go wrong with a big ole single-event layer of ash for being really sure of the wailing and gnashing of teeth involved in deliberate, violent, destruction. Any mention of notable such occurrences in these studies?

@TheFallofRome

Жыл бұрын

Human and animal remains. A lot of the studies will emphasize the fact that urban centers seriously shrink and most of the stone and brick fall into disrepair, or get used for other buildings. There are ash layers in the archaeology-they’re usually known as destruction layers 1 and 2, and get subdivided. In the eastern portions of the empire they’re usually associated with the Huns

Hey, I finally figured it out the difference between the Roman catastrophes in the Republican/Principate and post Principate period. Rome had never lost breadbasket in both the Republican period and the Principate, not even temporarily. Not only that the Vandal seizure of N.A. involved the ocean, not only Rome needed a big army, but a navy as well. Plus the plagues. The vast distance required far bigger logistical challenges than anything Republic/Principate had had to deal with. Rome by that time, had far bigger population than Rome in the Republican/Principate period, Italy could no longer produce enough food for the population of Italy even by late Republic.

@TheFallofRome

Жыл бұрын

Yes, absolutely. In more ways than one, the end of the western Roman Empire is less of a catastrophe type of event and more like death by one thousand cuts. One of the main sources I used for this video, Bryan Ward-Perkins’ “The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization” makes the argument, and I think he maybe overstates it from one point of view, but then again, maybe it’s not overstated at all, that the reason the eastern half of the state survived was precisely because the majority of their land, especially their key economic territory, was behind the straits that separate the Middle East from Europe, and the barbarians often didn’t have ships. So, figuratively, they might have been badly beaten, but the organs of the state were more or less intact

Were definitely heading that direction

things we learned today: Racism, Slavery, and Dictatorship are bad and cause bad things.

@letsburn00

11 ай бұрын

Unfortunately, a bunch of people are convinced that the best way for them to have more is to take things from others, declare them lazy and force them to work for almost nothing.

Hey just a question from a comment in the video was the African/Carthage Provence richer than Roman Italy?

@TheFallofRome

Жыл бұрын

It fluctuates with time, but generally yes. Italy often had more money because many of those towns and cities in Italy had their tax burden waived, but Africa was far more productive economically for much of its history as a Roman province

Wow. Of course , it is very understandable , taking all this into account that art and artist became almost prehistoric too

What do you think about Perry Anderson's "Passages from antiquity to feudalism"? Is it too outdated?

@TheFallofRome

Жыл бұрын

It’s getting old, yeah, but I would recommend you read if you’re interested in seeing how the field has developed. Usually stuff from the 1970s is a bit too old for the medieval period now

@pepegomezmerchan7685

Жыл бұрын

@@TheFallofRome other than Wickham who would you say are the most prominent historical materialist medievalists rn?

@TheFallofRome

Жыл бұрын

@@pepegomezmerchan7685 well, there aren’t really medievalists who explicitly would identity, probably, as historical materialists. What’s happened is that medievalists as a rule have adopted aspects of that analysis because you can’t examine the post Roman west without it But as for prominent medievalists, Guy Halsall and Paul Veyne are two major scholars active right now. So is Patrick Geary, and eventually Laura Gathagan. She still has a somewhat young career, but is quickly establishing herself as a major Anglo-Normanist

@pepegomezmerchan7685

Жыл бұрын

@@TheFallofRome even if there aren't medievalists who explicitly identify themselves as "historical materialists" (which i doubt) i suppose that there are differences in the degree in which historians accept the tradition of historical materialism

Who were the Vandals? I thought that they were a Germanic tribe. What were they doing in North Africa? Could you do a video on them if you haven't all ready?

Truly the end of an era... But Rome lives on inside our hearts

KZread's policy on war related content really raises a red flag. It's one thing to say that you shouldn't promote violent content, it's a whole nother to suggest that there's no acceptable way of documenting it. This is why people believe in conspiracy theories... What is really happened behind the scene and should we be worried?

@Zogerpogger

Жыл бұрын

I am hoping one day to found a "KZread" for history videos only and invite all of the history youtubers to join. That way people can make what they want and educate people without fear of the corporate axe. Unfortunately KZread is basically the only platform as of now where someone has a hope of getting a large enough audience to make a living.

One of the What Ifs I think about a lot is what if Majorian had defeated the Vandals? Would he still have been over thrown? Would a vestigial WRE state have survived? ED: so with the note at the end, made me wonder do you have opinions regarding the big blow-up that got touched off by James Sweet.

@TheFallofRome

Жыл бұрын

Would you happen to be asking about his “is history history?” Article?

@specialnewb9821

Жыл бұрын

@@TheFallofRome correct!

I have often thought of this gap. Thanks bro! Compare the Barbary Coast's power over shipping. The US could do nothing, just pay and pay.

War... war never changes until it does.

@Zogerpogger

Жыл бұрын

I once accidentally wrote that the roman army never changed in an essay for my roman history class. I had meant to make a point about military life not changing much within the scope of a small period of time instead of implying that the legions never underwent change over all of Roman history. I was already well versed in Roman military reforms at that point, so it was incredibly embarassing to have my professor mark me down with an all caps comment about the changing nature of Roman warfare.

"Radical material simplification" Woooow!

@osea5000

Жыл бұрын

"Dark Earth" !!!

@osea5000

Жыл бұрын

Most terrifying videos on KZread.

Wow. I don't think I've ever heard anyone lay out in such vivid detail just how much the fall of the Western Roman Empire absolutely sucked on a day-to-day level. Bioarchaeology FTW, it really paints a picture.

In defense of the good name of the Vandals: Actually, north africa does not seem to have experienced any significant material decline under the rule of the vandal kingdom. The Vandals appear to have integrated relatively well into local society and they even continued to build churches out of stone. The real downfall of the African provinces occurred during the reconquest of Justinuan. Ironically, the romans destroyed their own civilization in the west

@septimiusseverus343

2 ай бұрын

The Roman Italians can also attest to the fact that it was Justinian's "Renovatio Imperii Romanorum" that in effect destroyed the Roman way of life and institutions in Italy. It became a scorched desert, and would not truly regain its former prosperity until the 11th century.

Yeah, this is Battletech

War isn't Hell. Hell is Hell. War is war and war is a LOT worse. There are no innocent people in Hell.

@bobbarker8732

Жыл бұрын

Pull your head out of your ass .... cast ye Pearl's not unto swine... I will not give someone of that philosophy the time of day for an explanation but I would gladly stop by for 5 seconds to remind you how stupid you are

@therealfriday13th

Жыл бұрын

Give proper credit and CITE, ya plagarist

@eldorados_lost_searcher

Жыл бұрын

Captain Pierce, I presume.

@Tareltonlives

Жыл бұрын

-Hawkeye Pierce

@Treklosopher

Жыл бұрын

Sherman's was better.

Sending the Empire to the Chiropractor

What’s your favourite primary source from the latter western empire and gothic period? Aside from Cassiodorus..

@TheFallofRome

Жыл бұрын

Ammianus Marcellinus

@babaghanoush1124

Жыл бұрын

@@TheFallofRome Thanks, I have three questions, feel free to not answer I’m sorry to impose, do we know what happened to the places that these Germans left during the Volkerwanderüng and what the effects im their former lands were? I remember reading in a book somewhere that by the end of the 7th century the Angeln peninsula in south Schleswig was largely depopulated because of Anglian migration to England and in the Historia Langobardum by Paul the Deacon he says that after his ancestors left Pannonia in the train of King Alboin in the mid-6th century that was the end of German presence in Pannonia, but I am curious if the archaeology tells us anything? Secondly, although I know that Germanic armies were all over the empire, as friends and foes, and that Germanic people like Stilicho and Flavius Aetius and Ricimer rose to the highest levels of the Roman state, if I am an average person living in a large Roman city around the time Theodosius or Honorius like Roma, Ravenna, Constantinople, Sirmium, Hippo Regius etc is it likely that I am well acquainted with Germans and interact with them on a regular basis? Finally, in those large Roman cities right on the German frontier like Mainz/Mogontiacum or Trier/Augusta Treverorum which would have been lost or conquered first, did the Romans lately stay in place and live with their new Frankish rulers or flee closer into the empire?

Since you mention barter, I take it that means you reject David Graeber's theories about informal credit systems in the case of a collapse of a coinage based economy?

@TheFallofRome

Жыл бұрын

Oh I actually don’t have an opinion. Graeber is on my to be read list, but informal credit systems haven’t really cropped up in my reading of the immediate post Roman west

@yungsouichi2317

Жыл бұрын

@@TheFallofRome I liked Debt a lot when I read years back but people have attacked some of his theories about credit systems in antiquity (think he's theories about markets being state created in that time period are correct more or less tho, but I'm not a scholar)

@Zogerpogger

Жыл бұрын

@@yungsouichi2317 Someone gave me that for Christmas, I guess I should bump it up on my reading list.

Whats your background?

@TheFallofRome

Жыл бұрын

BA in history, looking at doing a PHD in a few years

@casualyoutubeviewer9198

Жыл бұрын

@@TheFallofRome Same as me, did you do your bachelors on ancient history? Can I recommend a book to you that you might find interesting? It's the House of Augustus by TP Wiseman. Would love to hear your thoughts on his theory.

@TheFallofRome

Жыл бұрын

@@casualyoutubeviewer9198 I took a lot of ancient history, but I actually focused on modern, I wrote my undergrad thesis on the Japanese empire

14:54 Google Bucha. It's suburbs of a European capital. My mother is originally from Bakhmut. I don't know the full extent of early medieval violence, but at least one of victims of sexual assault by russian soldiers was 4. L And Syrians have it worse... Chemical weapons on civilians, definitely not something Sarmatians faced. Last century was between Holocaust, nukes, napalm and rapey Soviet soldiers...

Slightly pedantic, but with regards to building in mortared stone, this only disappears completely in Britannia. Brian Ward Perkins, the king catastrophist himself, limits the complete disappearance to Britannia (he alludes to other areas but fails to furnish examples or build on it) with the continent seeing an explicit continuation of masonry, enough that Perkins mentions the reintroduction of it and glass windows into Anglo-Saxon England by Franks. Whilst it did recede in scale, both falling out of the common, domestic sphere and in size of construction, it is misleading, if not erroneous, to say people stopped building in stone without caveats.

@TheFallofRome

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, I probably should have emphasized that a little more. Regardless, building in wood and the cessation of shingles as a building component does see an uptick on the continent, at least in the immediate post-roman period. It does eventually go back to a tradition of stone, but the overall point I was really trying to hammer home was, for at least a few decades, things did genuinely appear to become measurably worse

KZreadr: "Rape..." KZread: "DEMONETIZED!" KZreadr: "...seed oil" :( The Historian's Craft: "Molestation..." KZread: Everyone: The Historian's Craft: KZread: "Why is everyone looking at me?"

Systems Collapse!

THAT'S why it's called the Dark Ages. The Term Dark Ages should be repurposed for this period instead of its old meaning.

@Turnil321

Жыл бұрын

I think we should have different dark ages based on regions and time periods. Like the Justinian dark age, the Viking dark age (for western Europe, not Scandinavia), and the black dark age (black death).

So many parallels to what was going on in the Late Qing.

@Tareltonlives

Жыл бұрын

Absolutely. All the wars were won, but at such a cost that the nation itself was devastated along with the enemy. This is how Poland-Lithuania fell too.

o7

It could be said it was a dark age. But for some reason it's not a trendy word to use anymore.

@Turnil321

Жыл бұрын

It is because it was used by the people in the renaissance to make themselves look better and it goes over a 1000-year period, not 30 years like this video. Not everything during this period of 1000 years was bad, especially outside of Europa (Islamitic golden age for example).

@rileyernst9086

Жыл бұрын

@@Turnil321 1000 years? No that would certainly not fit between 416AD and ~1066, I believe that seasonally adjusted you'd find it comes closer to ~500 years which is the traditional English model for the dark ages. I personally believe the 11th century is suitable enough a time as any as it is the rise of Feudalism and the use of Heavy Shock Cavalry(Knights) in the Norman model, which spread all over western Europe and thus the medieval period proppa. And well yes it did not dark age elsewhere, but we are NOT talking about elsewhere. We are talking about Western Europe the former Western Roman Empire We're not even talking about the Eastern Roman Empire, which was an enlightened, sophisticated technological, military and cultural power house(in the 8th century they wrote a guide for fighting 'Franks and Lombards'(Westerners) which would be very suitable till the start of the 16th century. its really quite pathetic) let alone the Islamic Golden age(which seriously consisted of finding the Greek, Persian, Indian and Roman knowledge in the libraries in Persia and being quite shall we say 'enlightened' (cos it's the opposite of dark, gettit?)). I think dark age is the perfect term, people do not have time or peace to pursue enlightened art or thought, high culture struggles to thrive live in fear of regional conflict, invaders, local instability, they are malnourished and diseased. The very earth of their settlements is dark, because there is no working sewage systems, there is squalor, dark earth. Life is short and brutal. A world that has collapsed, or is very much in the process of that slow process of recovering, and is typified by extremely decentralised power. And yes I would list dark ages outside of a European context, and most of those will be before the arrival of European powers and were specifically caused by internal, regional problems and instabilities and are typified by societal breakdown and collapse and the loss of knowledge, that were triggered by the diseases that came with them. The collapse of the North American nations (some of which were legitimate nations before the pox literally killed that many people they basically abandoned their urban cities) When the Europeans arrived they essentially encountered a devastated people. The famine of the Mayans. They went from having a very centralised and densely populated civilisation, to being reduced to sparsely scattered as food productivity suddenly declined dramatically. The Bronze age collapse: We go from having a sophisticated set of large empires vying for power to internal and external factors, migration and large scale piracy/migration, famine, climate change and a literal geological storm(of literally biblical proportions(yeah at this time walking 3 times around a city may well seem to cause it to collapse) essentially destroyed the most sophisticated and enlightened powers of the time, and led to a period of chaos that lasted, around five hundred years before the region essentially recovered. The first nations of Australia: When most colonisation was taking place the hierarchy and fabric of most aboriginal tribes were in tatters, as many as two thirds of the population had been wiped out and it was not uncommon for bands of warriors to be essentially resorting to banditry. Traditional gatherings and trade was disrupted majorly. The Inca and Aztec empires are almost unique in being able to take all the strains and surviving in a recognizable form till contact with the Europeans. It is dark because dark is the opposite of enlightened. A post apocalyptic world is a dark age. Big emphasis on POST apocalyptic. Not just during the chaotic collapse and initial period of instability. If you got to the end of this, thank you. It got kinda long.😄

@Turnil321

Жыл бұрын

@@rileyernst9086 I think the first dark age would be better between 416 until emperor Charlemene at 768. Things were better for western Europa even with the Viking raids. But these days we often talk about the early( fall roman empire), middle (Viking raids and Charlemagne), and late middle ages (crusades and expansion of the christian world in Europa), so I do not think it is that necessary.

@rileyernst9086

Жыл бұрын

​@@Turnil321 That would only be fair. The English version is pretty, small offshore-island-centric. But that is the way it was taught.

@Turnil321

Жыл бұрын

@@rileyernst9086 True, My version of history is that of my own country (Netherlands) so is more focused on western Europa.

It should be noted that the fall of Rome in the long run wasn't exactly a bad development.

@TheFallofRome

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, this is actually the central thesis of Walter Schiedel’s recent book on the subject

@MohamedRamadan-qi4hl

Жыл бұрын

@@TheFallofRome yeah. I mean it's only with the fall of Rome do we have even parliaments

@alexzero3736

Жыл бұрын

No, no. It is the worst. With Rome alive humanity would already colonize Mars.

@MohamedRamadan-qi4hl

Жыл бұрын

@@alexzero3736 you do realize that the eastern Half {that was known for its wealth and better scholarship} lived for a 1000 years right?

@alexzero3736

Жыл бұрын

@@MohamedRamadan-qi4hl things are more complex. Lost connections between Africa, Arabian peninsula and Europe caused Dark age (this also was a cause for Crusades). Fall of literacy, fall of arts, architeture, even glassblowing reduced significatly...What started age of Renaissance? How do you think? Recovered Antic knowledge did it. It was saved and developed a bit by Arabs and Moors, during reqonquista and just trade with them Europe got this knowledge back. What the distance between fall of Rome and Renaissance? Well, we cant name accurate dates, but it is around 7 centuries.

❤🫀❤

Do you think people who get offended by the term "Dark ages" are being silly?

@TheFallofRome

Жыл бұрын

In general I think people who get offended by historical terminology or dating systems are silly, yes. Usually when I press the topic they don’t know how history works or what historians do. Periodization and terms are made up about 90 percent of the time. No one alive in 450 really thought they were living through the fall of rkme

@waltonsmith7210

Жыл бұрын

@@TheFallofRome It just seems like like if the early medieval period is ever referred to as the dark ages, its inevitably followed up by tsk tsking about how the Dark Ages werent really that "dark." I dont understand why they put so much energy into attacking the term. It seems like theyre over literalizing it. I dont even think its a perjorative, it has more to do with the lack of records than anything else. Besides, it seems like there really was a massive societal collapse that radically simplified material culture. Seems pretty dark to me lol

@TheFallofRome

Жыл бұрын

@@waltonsmith7210 well, as someone with an academic background in history (I did my BA and plan to do a PhD) I usually find, and I don’t mean this to be insulting but here it is, that getting up in arms over terms and whatnot is done by non-historians. No professional would *ever* discourage interest in a subject by a lay audience, but when that audience gets angry at something because they don’t know what terms actually mean or how they’re used, the academic then gets angry, and hence doesn’t want to communicate. Which perpetuates the cycle of keeping the finer details of this stuff locked up, as it were, which leads to interested people getting all bent out of shape and blowing things like “dark ages” “post modernism” and “bce/ce” totally out of proportion

War... War never changes.

Imma vandalise that like button

@TheFallofRome

Жыл бұрын

Rough. Sounds jolly good