Book Review: Justinian's Flea

Well, unfortunately, what with work, cleaning my room, studying and practicing, drivers ed, and optometrist visits ... this week has allowed precious little time-space to devote to the second half of the double movie review. As I write now, I only have 20 minutes to punch out something meaningful here before I disappear into the Tim Hortons abyss for 8 long hours. Spiderman III will have to wait a couple more days if I want to do it any justice. This post will be a quick book review of Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe (by William Rosen, Jonathan Cape, 2007).

Bookstores these days have two main types of books in their History sections: 1) those written by professional and expert historians (examples being The Peloponnesian War, by Donald Kagan; The Spartans, by Paul Cartledge; and The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt). These volumes are top-notch quality, academic gems made available to the general public, condensing decades of intense study into accessable volumes. However, often a downside to these is that they are often a bit laborous ... they often rely on some previous knowledge on the part of the reader; they can get bogged down into intensely boring studies of pottery fragments; etc. Then are 2) those books written by "laymen," amateur historians (often journalists or professional writers). These books are very interesting: they are written by well-read people who love their topic of study and often do excellent research. While they usually fall short in fine details, they provide brilliant overviews of historical topics and periods. Justinian's Flea is one of these books.

The author has done great research to provide a very captivating and accurate portrayal of the fall of Rome, the rise of the Byzantine Empire, and the life and achievements of its best-known emperor - Justinian. There are fascinating chapters dealing with architecture (the building of the "Hagia Sophia"); theological controversies (interesting discussions detailing differences in doctrine that defined the Greek Orthodox movement), warfare (the exploits of the fantastic general Belisarius), etc. The section of the book dealing with bacteria and the plague were, I thought, some of the most interesting in the book. The author traces the characteristics of the lethal bacteria that created the bubonic plague, covering the ways in which the plague spread and what caused it to spring up into epidemics, and how it made its way into Constantinople. Once there, this plague killed hundreds of thousands ... here the author explains the effects of this plague on the immediate age and what effect it had on the forming of medieval Europe. Very good!

This book is well-written, sure to fascinate (aside from some sections that delve too deeply into archetectural principles, biology, and military tactics) ... if you are at all interested in the history of the late Roman Empire, Byzantium, the black plague, Belisarius, Justinian, Europe of the Middle Ages, or the interaction between Rome, Constantinople, Arabia and Persia, and China ... this is an amazing book to introduce you to this time and these topics.