When we hear the word "Barbarian", we have a mental picture of a crude, brutal warrior, with eyes burning with hunger for pillage and loot. And when we think of a fall of Western Roman Empire, we pit army of those barbarians against culturally sophisticated and advanced Romans. It's a scene taken right of out of Lord of the Rings, endless waves of black orcs overrunning the Realm of Men, right? • Yitzhak Hen in his 2007 book "Roman Barbarians: The Royal Court and Culture in the Early Medieval West" confronts that well entrenched stereotype with extremely well researched source material of the period and later centuries. • We're being presented with lengthy preface that sets the tone of the book by introducing us to the field of study, before describing four Early Medieval Courts - Ostrogothic in Italy, Merovingian in France, Visigothic in Spain and Vanal in North Africa. Four kingdoms, all ruled by barbarian elite, are presented as places where culture of Late Antiquity not only survived but flourished and morphed into typical for later period ecclesiastic model. • Book has an impressive number of bibliographical references (Book of just above 200 pages, has 20 pages devoted only for "Selected Bibliography"). For a lame person like myself, who's interest in the field is fairly shallow, I quickly begun ignoring most annotations. However someone with true hunger for knowledge in this subject, will find numerous sources an amazing help in deepening understanding of the period. • Book itself demands from the reader some basic knowledge of history between V and VIII centuries, focused on culture and court of chosen monarchs, author leaves out the basic historical facts and wide background, expecting reader to be familiarized with the high-school-level historical knowledge. • Book itself isn't a page-turner, but author leads us through meanders of Early Middle Ages with logical and well structured content. He introduces authors and their works only to show us the depth of field, without focusing on too many details. • I'd recommend this book to those who seek quick introduction to the early Middle Ages with enough details to catch scent of different royal courts in the period, without going too deep into dry nuances. • It is also great place to seek guidance on source material regarding the period and modern books discussing it in greater detail.