The End of Empire: Attila the Hun and the Fall of Rome

By Christopher Kelly

(W.W. Norton, 350 pp., $26.95)

Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia From the Bronze Age To the Present

By Christopher I. Beckwith

(Princeton University Press, 472 pp., $35)

The extraordinary reputation of Attila and his Huns requires an explanation, because they had so much competition. Their apogee, until Attila's death in 453, came just after the invasions that were extinguishing the Roman Empire in the west: the invasions of Germanic Alamanni, Burgundians, Ripuarian Franks, Salian Franks, Gepids, Greuthungi and Thervingi Goths, Heruli, Quadi, Rosomoni, Rugi, Sciri, Suevi, Taifali, and the original Vandals, as well as Alan horsemen of Iranic origin and probably Slavic Antae as well. Yet it is the Huns who are more vividly remembered than any of them, including Alaric's Goths, who in 410 had the historical distinction of being the first to sack Rome since the Gaulish raid of 387 B.C.E. (and to loot the accumulated wealth of centuries of empire); and more vividly remembered than the proverbial Vandals, who later inflicted greater damage by cutting off North Africa's grain supply to Italy.

Maybe--hopefully--it was just a one-time concession, an effort to get the Chinese censors off his back once and for all. Regular readers may recall my review last year of Hero, the gorgeous, innovative martial-arts epic by Zhang Yimou that concluded with an appalling paean to authoritarianism in general and the "one China" policy of Tibetan and Taiwanese subjugation in particular. Zhang's followup effort, thankfully, is less morally fraught. Just released on video, House of Flying Daggers shares Hero's balletic choreography, stunning palette, and innovative digital effects, but drops its deplorable politics.