Wrong Side of History
We tend to see history as divided into three ages - the ancient, medieval and modern. This idea is so central, indeed almost mystically so, that to see the world in another light requires the work a great and imaginative mind.
Which is why it is only right to mark the 90 th birthday of perhaps our greatest living historian, Peter Brown, widely regarded as inventing and popularising the concept of ‘Late Antiquity’, a period that encompasses both the ancient world and early medieval.
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Born into a Dublin Protestant family, Brown divided his childhood between Bray in Co Wicklow, and the Sudan, perhaps the two most unlikely pairings on earth and surely the only person in history who can claim such a biographical detail. Early travels abroad sparked an interest in the Arabic language and the civilisation of the Middle East, as well as the study of collapsing empires (perhaps a relatable one for a southern Irish Protestant in the mid-20 th century).
As an academic, Brown first worked at Oxford and Royal Holloway before heading to the new imperial citadel, first in Berkeley and then Princeton. Over many decades he became known for his lectures, his research and editing of historical journals - but also for his books, surprisingly accessible for the level of expertise and academic rigour.
