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Germanic collectivity exists in linguistics but never existed anywhere else... [A]n "early Germanic world"... had no existence anywhere until it took form in the minds of scholars in sixteenth-century Europe and was thoughtlessly espoused by everyone else.

— Walter Goffart Barbarian Tides (2010)

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More quotes by Walter Goffart

I would be content if "German" and its derivatives were banished from all but linguistic discourse on this subject.

Barbarian Tides (2010)

The myth of the Germans before Germany is hard to suppress because, owing to its great age and genesis in the sources themselves.

Barbarian Tides (2010)

If Europe has had a supreme invented tradition, that of the Germans before Germany is it-so much so that most people who speak about it do not realize that they are dealing with fiction.

Barbarian Tides (2010)

The main goal of this book is to reform thinking and writing about the barbarians in late antiquity by driving out the anachronistic terms "German" and "Germanic" and the baggage that goes with them.

Barbarian Tides (2010)

What we call the Fall of the Western Roman Empire was an imaginative experiment that got a little out of hand.

Barbarians and Romans, A.D. 418-584 (1980)

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Walter Goffart (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.