"The first part of the essay calls into question the idea that the Germanic-speaking barbarians shared any sort of unifying ethos or culture that would allow us to conceive of them as a single entity. This section largely summarizes a particular direction in recent work, but the conclusion is still far from generally accepted or integrated in current study and so requires restating... The comprehensive rejection of the idea of a unifying Germanic ethos and identity among pre-migratory Germani removes the classic basis for nineteenth-century views of the German people as rooted in distant history... One inheritance of nineteenth-century (and earlier) notions of pan-Germanic culture is the unlikely notion that all Germani had access to a common range of cultural traits, upon which they could draw at will... Attempts to change this intellectually careless state of affairs are making only slow process."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Historians from EnglandEssayists from EnglandAcademics from the United KingdomNon-fiction authors from England
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
pp. 519-521
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Guy_Halsall
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Guy Halsall
12 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Guy Halsall →
Related Quotes
"In the reinterpretation of ‘Germanic’ archaeology I have benefited from discussions with, and the encouragement of fe…"
"One of the problems that has most beset the study of early medieval Europe is, as noted, that of Germanism. This book…"
"The problems of Germanism have long been recognised. Alas, entirely analogous developments are currently taking place…"
"There can be no question of a general overriding ‘Germanic’ or ‘Celtic’ identity amongst the different barbarian grou…"
"Historians are not immune from similarly bizarre reasoning, of course. The counter-revisionist offensive against more…"
"The Nazis adopted these ideas with gusto but they did not invent them. Nor have post-Nazi archaeologists entirely aba…"
"[I'm] (probably) the most significant historian of early medieval Europe under the age of 60 anywhere in the world...…"
"Recently, something of an academic counter-revolution... has taken place. Oxford-trained historians have led the way,…"
"The recent use of scientific (or pseudo-scientific) methodologies to examine migration has added an extra, alarming d…"
"[T]he writing of history is inescapably political, my aim is partly to provide a basis for a more politically and eth…"