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Title: Depends on what you want in a "guide"
Review: This is a wonderful book, but I want to offer the caveat that if you're looking for a general introduction to the period, or for a comprehensive reference book, this is neither. The essays are somewhat specialized, and the alphabetic section, while it offers many articles on unexpected subjects -- Nudity and Refugees, to name just two -- is by no means encyclopedic. Thus there are articles on the literary figures Ausonius and Sidonius, for example, but nothing at all on Rutilius Namatianus or Prudentius. Horses get a heading, but dogs don't. The emphasis is on social history, not events, so you won't find anything here on the battle of Adrianople.If you don't know much about the period, I'd recommend first reading Peter Brown's The World of Late Antiquity, a superbly written and well illustrated introduction.
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