Book Review: The Germanic Warrior Clubs

Authors

H. Dwight Page

Keywords

Germanic tribes, Roman Empire, assimilation, warrior club, tribal states

Abstract

Scholarship concerning the migrations of the Germanic tribes and their assimilation into the Roman Empire has been divided for centuries into essentially two schools of thought: the writings of medieval British, French and Italian authors and the historians of the French Enlightenment, such as Montesquieu and Voltaire, who perceived the Germanic migrations as destructive and malicious invasions of the Roman world; the writings of nineteenth and twentieth century German scholar-apologists, who have sought to justify the Germanic migrations by stressing that these movements were necessitated by the pressure exerted upon the Germanic tribes by the westward progressing Huns and by advancing arguments proving that the Germanic tribes preserved much more than they destroyed upon entry into the Roman Empire. Both points of view are corroborated by a vast amount of documentation. Eluding rational explanation are the many examples of wanton destructiveness and vandalism perpetrated by the Germanic invaders. By serving to elucidate this mystery, The Germanic Warrior Clubs is a most welcome addition to the scholarly literature on the subject.

Recommended Citation

Page, H. Dwight (1996) "Book Review: The Germanic Warrior Clubs," Swiss American Historical Society Review: Vol. 32: No. 3, Article 5.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sahs_review/vol32/iss3/5