Partly drawing upon ideas from sociology and critical theory, scholars of the Vienna School have utilized the concept of ethnogenesis to reassess the notion of ethnicity as it applies to historical groups of peoples such as the Germanic tribes.
Focusing on Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, the Vienna School has a large publishing output, and has had a major influence on the modern analysis of barbarian identity.
The origins of the Vienna School of History can be traced to the works of the German historian Reinhard Wenskus.
James Harland and Matthias Friedrich write that "[b]roadly speaking, advocates of both camps have shared goals, and oppose the racist and ethnonationalist agendas which draw upon interpretations of the late antique world as an ideological resource".
[14] He traces the Fall of the Western Roman Empire to external migration triggered by the Huns in the late 4th century.