Late Antiquity: A Very Short Introduction

Late antiquity, roughly the centuries from 300 to 800 CE, was an age in which the Roman world changed profoundly without simply disappearing. Gillian Clark introduces the period through one of its central historical debates: should these centuries be understood primarily as decline and fall, or as a complex transformation linking the ancient Mediterranean to the medieval world?

Clark examines imperial government, law and welfare, religious change, Christianisation, encounters with peoples labelled ‘barbarians’, and the shifting balance of power across Europe and the Mediterranean. She also considers the persistence and adaptation of classical culture alongside new political and religious institutions. Concise and interpretively alert, this Very Short Introduction gives readers a useful framework for understanding why late antiquity has become a distinct and important field of historical study.