Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
1 A Clarification: The Three Meanings of "Migration Age"
2 A Recipe on Trial: "The Germans Overthrow the Roman Empire"
3 An Entrenched Myth of Origins: The Germans before Germany
4 Jordanes's Getica and the Disputed Authenticity of Gothic Origins from Scandinavia
5 The Great Rhine Crossing, a.d. 400-420, a Case of Barbarian Migration
6 The "Techniques of Accommodation" Revisited
7 None of Them Were Germans: Northern Barbarians in Late Antiquity
8 Conclusion: The Long Simplification of Late Antiquity
Appendices
1. Alexander Demandt on the Role of the Germans in the End of the Roman Empire
2. Chronicle Evidence for the Burgundian Settlement
3. The Meaning of agri cum mancipiis in the Burgundian Kingdom
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Promotional Information

Barbarian Tides radically subverts the grand narrative of a "Germanic" migration and reinvents the role of barbarians in the Later Roman Empire. Goffart sets out how the fragmented foreign peoples once living on the edges of the Empire participated with the Romans in the larger stirrings of late antiquity.

About the Author

Walter Goffart is Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Toronto and Senior Research Scholar and Lecturer at Yale University.

Reviews

"Goffart has produced yet another major study on the migration of the Northern barbarians into the late Roman Empire. Although called a sequel to his Barbarians and Romans, this is a completely rethought, significantly expanded and rewritten version."
*Choice*

"An important book which should be read attentively by all scholars of the late Roman West and early medieval Europe, and which will also be instructive to those interested in the intellectual history of early-modern and contemporary European historiography."
*EHR*