The World of the Huns: Studies in Their History and Culture

Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973. First Edition. Hard Cover. Good/Good. 9x6x1. First edition. Multiple chips and tears to jacket edges, jacket lightly toned, front jacket flap creased, jacket reverse soiled. 1973 Hard Cover. xxix, 602 pp. Few persons know more about the Huns than their reputation as savage horsemen who flourished at the beginning of the Middle Ages and the name of one of their leaders, Attila. They appeared in Europe from 'somewhere in the East,' terrorized the later Roman Empire and the Germanic tribes, caused the greatest upheaval that the Mediterranean world had ever seen - the Great Migrations - and vanished. Illiterate, they left no written records; such literary evidence of them as exists is secondary, scattered in the writings of contemporary and later reporters, fragmentary, biased, and unreliable. Their sole tangible relics are huge cauldrons and graves, some of which contain armor, equestrian gear, and ornaments. Who were the Huns? How did they live? Professor Maenchen-Helfen dedicated much of his life seeking answers to these questions. With pertinacity, passion, skepticism. and unsurpassed scholarship he pieced together evidence from remote sources in Asia, Russia, and Europe; categorized and interpreted it; and lived the absorbing detective story presented in this volume.