"Byzantium, July 29, 626 - at the gates of the most magnificent city in Europe and Asia, the Khagan of the Avars has gathered 80,000 warriors and demands their unconditional surrender. For the people of the metropolis, it is clear that the end of all times has come and that the forces of darkness have led the apocalyptic army of Gog to their city.
In his magisterial portrayal of the Migration Period, Mischa Meier shows how often people felt such deadly fear of advancing armies of foreign peoples between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. It includes the history of the late Imperium Romanum as well as the histories of post-Roman rule in the West, that of the early Byzantine Empire, but also that of the early Islamic caliphate up to the end of the Umayyad period (750). Rich in information, always comprehensible and exciting to read, it takes the reader from the European and North African Atlantic coast to the Central Asian junctions of the Silk Road, to northern India and the Hindu Kush, from Scandinavia and Britain in the north to Arabia in the south. It familiarizes us with the dramatic events of this period and the profound processes of change that accompanied them. A true magnum opus that offers a complete history of the era for the first time." (Publisher)