Military history is not my jam. I was pleasantly surprised to find this to be readable, not bogged down in minutiae, and full of context!!! of the battles being fought.

Justinian is a controversial figure. Whitby is clearly a Justinian fanboy. He does note some of the problems, comparing him implicitly to Trump and explicitly discussing comparisons to Hitler.

The most frustrating thing to me was how cool things would be mentioned and passed over. A bunch of African Christains had their tongues cut out, but some could still speak until they visited some prostitutes? Traditional punishment for cowardice being flayed alive, skin blown up like a balloon and displayed from a flagpole?

Thank you to Michael Whitby, Pen and Sword, and Netgalley for a free ecopy in exchange for an honest review.

NB: free copy received for honest review

This is a thorough - and thoroughly footnoted - history of the military and paramilitary conflicts of Justinian I's long reign. The author takes the time to survey the Roman Empire's government, organisation and finances first, noting that these are vital to the prosecution of wars, before providing theatre-by-theatre breakdowns of the conflicts. Broadly speaking, this means the separate analysis of the Persian, African, Italian, Balkan and internal fronts.

The chosen organisation approach has both positives and negatives - for instance, it helps keep the progress of each theatre more contiguous, but made it harder for me to appreciate how simultaneous conflicts were impacting each other. It can also sometimes get a little dry, with a blizzard of often similarly-named men fighting, allying and betraying each other.

Probably the key thing this account brought home was the quicksand-like nature of military alliances and social loyalties during the time. Key figures would often switch sides multiple times, with allies becoming enemies becoming subordinates becoming rebels becoming allies ... it's eye-opening how much impact personal slights and ambitions played in the fates of thousands of people.