Struggle for Empire: Kingship and Conflict under Louis the German, 817-876
Author: Eric J Goldberg
Struggle for Empire explores the contest for kingdoms and power among Charlemagne's descendants that shaped the formation of Europe. It examines this pivotal era through the reign of Charlemagne's grandson, Louis the German (826-876), one of the longest-ruling Carolingian kings. Eric J. Goldberg's book brings the enigmatic Louis to life and makes a vital contribution to recent reevaluations of the late Carolingian age.
In the Treaty of Verdun of 843, Louis inherited the eastern territories of the Carolingian empire, thereby laying the foundations for an east Frankish kingdom. But, as Goldberg emphasizes, Louis was never satisfied with his realm beyond the Rhine. Louis was a skilled and cultured ruler who modeled himself on Charlemagne, and he aspired to rebuild his grandfather's empire. This ambition to reunite Europe brought Louis into repeated conflict with other rulers: Carolingian kings, Byzantine emperors, Bulgar khans, Roman popes, and Slavic warlords. While Louis ultimately failed to reunify the empire, his fifty-year reign produced a period of remarkable political consolidation and cultural creativity in central Europe.
By highlighting the ways in which dynastic rivalries, aristocratic rebellions, diplomacy, and warfare shaped Louis's reign, Struggle for Empire uncovers the dynamism and innovation of ninth-century kingship. To trace Louis's evolving policies, Goldberg moves beyond the evidence traditionally used to study his reign-the Annals of Fulda-and exploits the visual arts, liturgy, archeology, and especially charters. The result is a remarkably comprehensive and colorful picture of Carolingian kingship in action.
Table of Contents:
| Acknowledgments | ix |
| Note on Terms and Names | xi |
| Abbreviations | xv |
| Introduction | 1 |
| Part I | Winning a Kingdom | 21 |
| 1 | The Young King, ca. 810-829 | 23 |
| 2 | Father and Sons, 830-838 | 57 |
| 3 | The Fight for Survival, 838-843 | 86 |
| Part II | King in East Francia | 117 |
| 4 | Frontier Wars, 844-852 | 119 |
| 5 | Consolidation and Reform, 844-852 | 147 |
| 6 | Kingship and Government | 186 |
| Part III | Visions of Empire | 231 |
| 7 | Drang nach Westen, 853-860 | 233 |
| 8 | Trials and Triumphs, 861-870 | 263 |
| 9 | The Call of Rome, 871-876 | 304 |
| Epilogue | 335 |
| Appendix 1 | Maps | 347 |
| Appendix 2 | Genealogies | 353 |
| Selected Bibliography | 357 |
| Index | 375 |
Interesting textbook: Betty Crockers Eat and Lose Weight or Irritable Bowel Syndrome and the MindBodySpirit Connection
Quarantine!: East European Jewish Immigrants and the New York City Epidemics of 1892
Author: Howard Markel
" Quarantine! unites the best of the two worlds of social history and clinical history in a narrative style so personal and at times gripping that a reader forgets that the book is meant primarily to be a scholarly text... Markel is as much spinning a complex yarn as he is writing a scrupulously researched chronicle."--Sherwin B. Nuland, M.D., New Republic
"Markel does the best job I have seen of depicting the experience of the quarantined--as well as explaining something of the political and etiological/prophylactic debates that framed and legitimated the quarantine itself. Along the way he makes substantive contributions to Jewish history, urban history, and public health history."--Charles E. Rosenberg, University of Pennsylvania
In Quarantine! Howard Markel traces the course of the typhus and cholera epidemics that swept through New York City in 1892. The story is told from the point of view of those involved -- the public health doctors who diagnosed and treated the victims, the newspaper reporters who covered the stories, the government officials who established and enforced policy, and, most importantly, the immigrants themselves. Drawing on rarely cited stories from the Yiddish American press, immigrant diaries and letters, and official accounts, Markel follows the immigrants on their journey from a squalid and precarious existence in Russia's Pale of Settlement, to their passage in steerage, to New York's Lower East Side, to the city's quarantine islands. At a time of renewed anti-immigrant sentiment and newly emerging infectious diseases, Quarantine! provides a historical context for considering some of the significant problemsthat face American society today.
"Beautifully written and thoroughly researched... This is a fine piece of history with a timely and thoughtful message; it deserves a wide readership among both health care professionals and professional historians."--Nancy Tomes, New England Journal of Medicine
"One of the major strengths of the book is the balance between the social construction of disease and the biological realities of illness... Quarantine! therefore provides an important cautionary tale not only for historians, but also for medical professionals who need to deal with modern epidemics in a rational and humane manner."--Heather Munro Prescott, New York History
"With vivid brush strokes Markel sketches in many of the colorful personalities who figured in his tale... Quarantine! is a fascinating and moving account."--Betty Falkenberg, Pakn Treger
Journal of the American Medical Association
This carefully examined, clearly written, and meticulously documented study is an important book. Read with the synoptic study of Alan Kraut, Silent Travelers: Germs, Genes and the "Immigrant Menace", it reminds us again of how disease outbreaks elicit public panic, media frenzy, discrimination, and political opportunism. We need only reflect on political issues of our time surrounding AIDS in Haitians, drug users, incarceration (quarantine) of the homeless for tuberculosis treatment, and "diseased" illegal immigrants to realize that we are not as humane and civilized as we think. Will we be free of stigmatization, will we provide good medical care, proper food and housing, and attention to cultural differences, if we have to quarantine a population?
Daniel R. Hinthorn
The 1892 quarantine as applied to Russian Jews and Italians in New York City during the international outbreak of typhus fever and cholera showed the social and ethical fabric of those in political power as they inconsistently applied quarantine based on race and social status, often without regard for individual civil rights. Societal-imposed barriers (political, economic, cultural, or legal) often cause the ill to be isolated or to feel isolated even if the dreaded quarantine placard is not actually hung in the window. The author succeeds in conveying the feelings of isolation and impotence felt by the diseased disadvantaged. Those who will find this book useful include students of history of medicine, history and development of ethics; persons interested in social theory, public health, legal medicine; and students of microbiology and infectious diseases. The author is a pediatrician with a doctorate in history. Because his roots are in the community that was disenfranchised, he is able to compare the events from the viewpoints of each side. The author contrasts traditional news reports with those from the alternative press, in this case the American Yiddish press. He critiques inconsistently administered quarantine using peer reviewers who spoke or wrote contemporaneously about the public health, and shows how scientific knowledge was not used in decision making. Instead, those in charge made public health decisions at an emotional level similar to decisions prior to scientific advances. The book is well illustrated with black-and-white photographs of people, maps, and buildings at the time of the epidemics. The photograph on the dust cover is of fine quality, helping thereader understand the frustrations of those quarantined. The annotated bibliography is helpful. This book is a must read. It caused me to modify my feelings about quarantine. The ethical treatment of the topic clearly convinced me that a balance between individual rights and the public health must be watched closely to prevent trampling on those without money, status, or an advocate.
Doody Review Services
Reviewer: Daniel R. Hinthorn, MD (University of Kansas School of Medicine)
Description: The 1892 quarantine as applied to Russian Jews and Italians in New York City during the international outbreak of typhus fever and cholera showed the social and ethical fabric of those in political power as they inconsistently applied quarantine based on race and social status, often without regard for individual civil rights.
Purpose: Societal-imposed barriers (political, economic, cultural, or legal) often cause the ill to be isolated or to feel isolated even if the dreaded quarantine placard is not actually hung in the window. The author succeeds in conveying the feelings of isolation and impotence felt by the diseased disadvantaged.
Audience: Those who will find this book useful include students of history of medicine, history and development of ethics; persons interested in social theory, public health, legal medicine; and students of microbiology and infectious diseases. The author is a pediatrician with a doctorate in history. Because his roots are in the community that was disenfranchised, he is able to compare the events from the viewpoints of each side.
Features: The author contrasts traditional news reports with those from the alternative press, in this case the American Yiddish press. He critiques inconsistently administered quarantine using peer reviewers who spoke or wrote contemporaneously about the public health, and shows how scientific knowledge was not used in decision making. Instead, those in charge made public health decisions at an emotional level similar to decisions prior to scientific advances. The book is well illustrated with black-and-white photographs of people, maps, and buildings at the time of the epidemics. The photograph on the dust cover is of fine quality, helping the reader understand the frustrations of those quarantined. The annotated bibliography is helpful.
Assessment: This book is a must read. It caused me to modify my feelings about quarantine. The ethical treatment of the topic clearly convinced me that a balance between individual rights and the public health must be watched closely to prevent trampling on those without money, status, or an advocate.
Library Journal
A Ph.D. in the history of science, medicine, and technology, Markel is director of the Historical Center for the Health Sciences at the University of Michigan. Here he skillfully explores the social, cultural, medical, and political issues surrounding the quarantine of East European Jewish immigrants during the typhus and cholera epidemics in 1892 New York City. He cites an impressive array of primary and secondary sources, including Yiddish American newspapers, congressional records, public health records, and the personal correspondence of public health officials and of the immigrants themselves. Using these materials, Markel supports very effectively his assertion that although the epidemics were indeed public health threats, the quarantine of the Jewish immigrants had more to do with prejudice, class distinctions, and political scapegoating than with the consistent employment of the scientific method. Highly recommended for medical history collections, this book would be an excellent companion to Alan M. Kraut's broader Silent Travelers: Germs, Genes, and the Immigrant Menace (LJ 1/94).Ximena Chrisagis, Wright State Univ., Dayton, Ohio
Kirkus Reviews
A revealing cultural and medical history that demonstrates how eastern European Jews, already subject to a kind of social quarantine, became the scapegoats when typhus and cholera struck New York City in 1892.
Markel, a clinicial historian who now directs the Historical Center for Health Sciences at the University of Michigan Medical School, documents the quarantine year through immigrant diaries and letters, Jewish social-agency reports, government files, and the press—both Yiddish and American. Liberal use of photographs, maps, cartoons, diagrams, and drawings add to the impact of Markel's powerful narrative. When an outbreak of typhus fever in January 1892 was traced to the SS Massilia, which carried 268 Russian Jewish immigrants, every single one, sick and healthy alike, along with several thousand healthy Jews with whom they had been in contact, were quarantined on North Brother Island in the East River. The focus was not on treatment of the ill but on isolation of the suspect group and protection of the native-born. Later that year, when cholera struck, Russian Jewish immigrants were again targeted. Whereas the typhus epidemic had been managed by the New York City Health Department, the cholera outbreak brought federal and state authorities into contentious play. Markel reveals how prejudice, fear, and anti-immigrant sentiment shaped both public reaction and official policy. He points out that the intertwining of immigration policy with fear of imported disease and social scapegoating that marked this episode in our history continues to the present day, and he notes that responses to future public health crises will be as much a measure of society's perceptions of health, disease, and individual rights as they are of medical and scientific understanding.
A valuable contribution to the history of public health in America, to New York City history, and to American Jewish history.
Rating
4 Stars! from Doody
