Instruct: Classify Amazon reviews into positive or negative sentiment
Query: Focused thematic overview of the Early Middle Ages

If you're looking for a good overview of the major themes of the Early Middle Ages, this is a good place to start. Picking up on the recent spate of "Late Antiquity" scholarship, it begins the story of the Early Middle Ages with fall of Rome. There are rampaging Visigoths aplenty as Rome falls to Alaric and his pals in 410 AD.The section on Byzantium will look familiar to those who have seen the History Channel series on "Engineering An Empire" - but still fits nicely here. Historical re-enactments are better than average, and the scholars slightly less bizarre than the usual History Channel lot.