Attila the hun biography john man
Attila: The Barbarian King Who Challenged Rome - Hardcover
Review
Praise for Attila The name Attila the Hun has become a byword for barbarism, savagery and violence. His is a truly household name, but what do we really know about the man himself, his position in history and the world in which he lived? This riveting biography reveals the man behind the myth.
"One could not wish for a better storyteller or analyst than John Man. . . . His Attila is superb, as compellingly readable as it is impressive in its scholarship: with his light touch, the Huns and their king live as never before. . . . There is something fascinating and new on every page."
---Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Stalin
"Racy and imaginative . . . puts flesh and bones on one of history's most turbulent characters. . . . The rise and fall of Attila, as meteoric and momentous as Napoleon's or Hitler's, makes for fascinating reading in any form."---The Guardian (UK)
"This bright, engaging, and breezy book . . . suits the tenor of our times."---The Times (London)
"John Man's account . . . sympathetically and readably puts flesh and bones on one of history's most turbulent characters."---Sunday Telegraph (UK)
Attila the Hun was "the Genghis Khan of Europe," says British historian Man in this fast-paced though often prosaic account of the rise and fall of the Huns and their infamous leader. Man traces the origin of the Huns, following these restless nomads from the steppes of Mongolia to present-day Hungary. Attila led his people in terrifying raids into new lands in the fifth century. Relying on scant written sources, Man (Genghis Khan; Gobi: Tracking the Desert) portrays Attila as a man of "extreme contradictions" and moods, skillful at deceiving both his closest advisers and his greatest enemies. In his military campaigns, Attila moved quickly to loot as many villages as he could in order to satisfy his followers. His armies of mounted archers, a throng that could shoot up to 12,000 arrows a minute, wrought destruction and terror wherever they went. He terrified the Romans as he approached their city, but Man says Attila would never have been able to penetrate the fortresses of Rome of Co (PW Publishers Weekly)
Attila the Hun
The city's Bishop came to confront the advancing Huns and said 'I am Lupus, a man of God.' At this, Attila came up with a smart one-liner, in impeccable Latin:
Ego sum Attilla, flagellum Dei — 'I am Attila, the Scourge of God.', pg. 220
I thought this was well-researched and put together well. The author did a good job at telling the back story and explaining the archaeological, cultural-historical, and folkloric dimensions attached to the mystique of the Huns. The author does a good job of showing the link of the Huns from the pastoral nomadic people, the Xiongnu (also spelled Hsiung-nu). It is a real possibility the Huns came out of present-day Mongolia, migrated west out of the region because of wars/tensions with the Han Chinese, pushed through the Dzungarian Gap, across the steppes of Russia, and settled "somewhere north of the Black Sea, the edge of the Roman world.", pg. 59
"The Huns were on the move westward, away from the grasslands of Kazakhstan and the plains north of the Aral Sea, wanderers who faced a choice between sinking into oblivion or climbing at new heights of conquest, pg. 71". The Huns would enter the region by 404 and Attila would establish his operating base out present-day Hungary between 435-51 AD and further terrorize the Roman Empire. "The Hun advance sent shock waves as far as Jerusalem, where Jerome concluded that God's punishment had descended again on the immoral Roman world in the form of savage tribes, pg. 115".
This book had a lot of information pertaining to the Huns and barbarians: horsemanship, the recurve bow and archery, pastoral-nomadism, and much more. The book can go off into tangents with extra information but it all ties-in nicely. I would recommend this book because it was a fast read, the readability was great, and I honestly learned a great deal. Thanks!Attila The Hun: A Barbarian King and the Fall of Rome
The city's Bishop came to confront the advancing Huns and said 'I am Lupus, a man of God.' At this, Attila came up with a smart one-liner, in impeccable Latin:
Ego sum Attilla, flagellum Dei — 'I am Attila, the Scourge of God.', pg. 220
I thought this was well-researched and put together well. The author did a good job at telling the back story and explaining the archaeological, cultural-historical, and folkloric dimensions attached to the mystique of the Huns. The author does a good job of showing the link of the Huns from the pastoral nomadic people, the Xiongnu (also spelled Hsiung-nu). It is a real possibility the Huns came out of present-day Mongolia, migrated west out of the region because of wars/tensions with the Han Chinese, pushed through the Dzungarian Gap, across the steppes of Russia, and settled "somewhere north of the Black Sea, the edge of the Roman world.", pg. 59
"The Huns were on the move westward, away from the grasslands of Kazakhstan and the plains north of the Aral Sea, wanderers who faced a choice between sinking into oblivion or climbing at new heights of conquest, pg. 71". The Huns would enter the region by 404 and Attila would establish his operating base out present-day Hungary between 435-51 AD and further terrorize the Roman Empire. "The Hun advance sent shock waves as far as Jerusalem, where Jerome concluded that God's punishment had descended again on the immoral Roman world in the form of savage tribes, pg. 115".
This book had a lot of information pertaining to the Huns and barbarians: horsemanship, the recurve bow and archery, pastoral-nomadism, and much more. The book can go off into tangents with extra information but it all ties-in nicely. I would recommend this book because it was a fast read, the readability was great, and I honestly learned a great deal. Thanks!Attila the Hun: A Barbarian King and the Fall of Rome
In the years 434-454AD the fate of Europe hung upon the actions of one man, Attila, king of the Huns. The decaying Roman empire still stood astride the Western World, from its twin capitals of Rome and Constantinople, but it was threatened by a new force, the much-feared Barbarian hordes. It was Attila who united the Barbarian tribes into a single, amazingly-effective army. He launched two violent attacks against the eastern and western halves of the Roman empire, attacks which earned him his reputation for mindless devastation, and brought an end to Rome's pre-eminence in Europe.
Attila was coarse, capricious, arrogant, ruthless and brilliant. An illiterate and predatory tribal chief, he had no interest in administration, but was a wily politician, who, from his base in the grasslands of Hungary, used secretaries and ambassadors to bring him intelligence on his enemies. He was a leader whose unique qualities made him supreme among tribal leaders, but whose weaknesses ensured the collapse of his empire after his death.