This work is an abbreviated version of the author's The Later Roman Empire. According to the preface this version was intended for 'intelligent but non-specialist readers". Even so this is a pretty hard book to read through. The first 10 chapters summarize events in Roman rulership from the third to the sixth century. The succession of years, names, deaths and successions is quite exhausting and I would have hoped for some broader perspectives. The remaining chapters 11-26 give a general presentation of institutions and social structures in the late empire: administration, finance, the church, social classes, religion and so forth. But even here the author puts a lot of emphasis on details, including much latin and greek terminology, which is bound to be difficult for non-specialists. Some chapters are certainly accessible, but I still think the book will be appreciated mostly by near-specialists. Readers who count themselves non-specialists would perhaps be better served by other books.