Walter Pohl, . Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 2018, xxiii, 636 pp., 4 maps.

Even though this is not a new publication, Pohl’s study on the Avars deserves particular attention, now in its first English translation. While not identified on the cover page, Pohl’s book was superbly translated into English by Will Sayers, who is briefly mentioned in the preface. Pohl had published his book originally in German in 1988, and it appeared in its third edition in 2015. Only in the last few decades has our awareness and understanding of the Avars grown and changed, particularly because intensive archaeological evidence has vastly changed our concept of that Steppe people who lived in the Carpathian Basin long before the Magyars settled there. Consequently, Pohl has made great efforts to reflect on the new insights and rewrote the respective sections of this book. In short, although here we hold in our hands ‘only’ the English translation of the third edition,