Author : Michael Decker
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 356 pages
File Size : 22,6 MB
Release : 2009-07-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9780199565283
A study of the agrarian landscape and economy of the late-antique eastern Mediterranean. Michael Decker describes the ways in which Roman farmers succeeded in producing food surpluses, fuelling a surge in population and a flowering of cultural expression and economic prosperity in the century before the arrival of Islam.
Author : Jack Tannous
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 664 pages
File Size : 37,38 MB
Release : 2020-03-31
Category : History
ISBN : 0691203156
In the second half of the first millennium CE, the Christian Middle East fractured irreparably into competing churches and Arabs conquered the region, setting in motion a process that would lead to its eventual conversion to Islam. Largely agrarian and illiterate, Christians often called "the simple" outnumbered Muslims well into the era of the Crusades, and yet they have typically been invisible in our understanding of the Middle East's history
Author : Cam Grey
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
Page : 372 pages
File Size : 30,87 MB
Release : 2025-04-15
Category : History
ISBN : 1512827401
Explores the ever-present experiences of risk that characterized the daily existence of individuals, communities, and societies in the late Roman world Living with Risk in the Late Roman World explores the ever-present experiences of risk that characterized the daily existence of individuals, communities, and societies in the late Roman world (late third century CE through mid-sixth century CE). Recognizing the vital role of human agency, author Cam Grey bases his argument on the concept of the riskscape: the collection of risks that constitute everyday lived experience, the human perception of those risks, and the actions that exploit, mitigate, or exacerbate them. In contrast to recent grand narratives of the fate of the late Roman Empire, Living with Risk in the Late Roman World focuses on the quotidian practices of mitigation and management, foreknowledge and prediction, and mobilization and manipulation of risks at the individual and community levels. Grey illustrates the ubiquity of these practices through a collection of anecdotes that emphasize the highly localized, heterogeneous, and complementary nature of riskscapes: members of local communities enlisting figures of power to neutralize the hazards posed by imminent catastrophes, be it a tsunami, earthquake, or volcanic eruption; Christian holy figures both suffering and imposing bodily affliction as part of their claims to control such hazards and thereby to exercise influence in these communities; intimate experiences of seasonality and weather that shaped local practices of subsistence but also of self-representation; and geographically specific and fiercely contested claims to special knowledge and control of water. Multidisciplinary in its methodology and provocative in its argumentation, Living with Risk in the Late Roman World demonstrates that human communities in the ancient past were inextricably intertwined with the world around them, and that the actions they took simultaneously responded to and shaped the risks—both hazardous and favorable—that they perceived.
Author : Cavan Concannon
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 267 pages
File Size : 22,82 MB
Release : 2016-03-17
Category : History
ISBN : 1317185803
Across the Corrupting Sea: Post-Braudelian Approaches to the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean reframes current discussions of the Mediterranean world by rereading the past with new methodological approaches. The work asks readers to consider how future studies might write histories of the Mediterranean, moving from the larger pan-Mediterranean approaches of The Corrupting Sea towards locally-oriented case studies. Spanning from the Archaic period to the early Middle Ages, contributors engage the pioneering studies of the Mediterranean by Fernand Braudel through the use of critical theory, GIS network analysis, and postcolonial cultural inquiries. Scholars from several time periods and disciplines rethink the Mediterranean as a geographic and cultural space shaped by human connectivity and follow the flow of ideas, ships, trade goods and pilgrims along the roads and seascapes that connected the Mediterranean across time and space. The volume thus interrogates key concepts like cabotage, seascapes, deep time, social networks, and connectivity in the light of contemporary archaeological and theoretical advances in order to create new ways of writing more diverse histories of the ancient world that bring together local contexts, literary materials, and archaeological analysis.
Author : Peter Sarris
Publisher : Oxford University Press on Demand
Page : 445 pages
File Size : 23,74 MB
Release : 2011-10-27
Category : History
ISBN : 0199261261
A panoramic account of the history of Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Near East from the fall of Rome to the rise of Islam.
Author : Alicia Simpson
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 389 pages
File Size : 17,39 MB
Release : 2013-09-26
Category : History
ISBN : 0191649732
Niketas Choniates' History is the single most important source for a crucial period in Byzantine history, which began with the death of Alexios I Komnenos in 1118 and culminated with the capture of Constantinople by the armies of the Fourth Crusade in 1204. In this first book-length study of the History in English, Simpson reviews the complex manuscript tradition and transmission of the text, and examines the substantial differences in style, content, and purpose between the two main versions in which it has been preserved. Investigating issues related to historical narrative and imperial biography, including genre and characteristic features, narrative structure, and character depiction, the volume also explores the sources from which Niketas Choniates compiled his account and the literary models and historical concepts which guided him. It emphasizes his literary mimesis of earlier writers, his creative and often innovative use of rhetorical forms and techniques, and his historical methodology and outlook. Finally, the book delves into the author's world in order to uncover his personal prejudices and preoccupations, and takes into account his other works, namely the orations and letters as well as the theological treatise, the Dogmatike Panoplia.
Author : Brent D. Shaw
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
Page : 481 pages
File Size : 24,10 MB
Release : 2013-01-01
Category : History
ISBN : 1442644796
The annual harvesting of cereal crops was one of the most important economic tasks in the Roman Empire. Not only was it urgent and critical for the survival of state and society, it mobilized huge numbers of men and women every year from across the whole face of the Mediterranean. In Bringing in the Sheaves, Brent D. Shaw investigates the ways in which human labour interacted with the instruments of harvesting, what part the workers and their tools had in the whole economy, and how the work itself was organized. Both collective and individual aspects of the story are investigated, centred on the life-story of a single reaper whose work in the wheat fields of North Africa is documented in his funerary epitaph. The narrative then proceeds to an analysis of the ways in which this cyclical human behaviour formed and influenced modes of thinking about matters beyond the harvest. The work features an edition of the reaper inscription, and a commentary on it. It is also lavishly illustrated to demonstrate the important iconic and pictorial dimensions of the story.
Author : Georgia L. Irby
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 1112 pages
File Size : 41,20 MB
Release : 2016-01-19
Category : History
ISBN : 1118373049
A Companion to Science, Technology, and Medicine in Ancient Greece and Rome brings a fresh perspective to the study of these disciplines in the ancient world, with 60 chapters examining these topics from a variety of critical and technical perspectives. Brings a fresh perspective to the study of science, technology, and medicine in the ancient world, with 60 chapters examining these topics from a variety of critical and technical perspectives Begins coverage in 600 BCE and includes sections on the later Roman Empire and beyond, featuring discussion of the transmission and reception of these ideas into the Renaissance Investigates key disciplines, concepts, and movements in ancient science, technology, and medicine within the historical, cultural, and philosophical contexts of Greek and Roman society Organizes its content in two halves: the first focuses on mathematical and natural sciences; the second focuses on cultural applications and interdisciplinary themes 2 Volumes
Author : Floris Bernard
Publisher : Oxford Studies in Byzantium
Page : 395 pages
File Size : 22,33 MB
Release : 2014
Category : History
ISBN : 0198703740
In the mid-eleventh century, secular Byzantine poetry attained a hitherto unseen degree of wit, vividness, and personal involvement, chiefly exemplified in the poetry of Christophoros Mitylenaios, Ioannes Mauropous, and Michael Psellos. This is the first volume to consider this poetic activity as a whole, critically reconsidering modern assumptions about Byzantine poetry, and focusing on Byzantine conceptions of the role of poetry in society. By providing a detailed account of the various media through which poetry was presented to its readers, and by tracing the initial circulation of poems, this volume takes an interest in the Byzantine reader and his/her reading habits and strategies, allowing aspects of performance and visual representation, rarely addressed, to come to the fore. It also examines the social interests that motivated the composition of poetry, establishing a connection with the extraordinary social mobility of the time. Self-representative strategies are analyzed against the background of an unstable elite struggling to find moral justification, which allows the study to raise the question of patronage, examine the discourse used by poets to secure material rewards, and explain the social dynamics of dedicatory epigrams. Finally, gift exchange is explored as a medium that underlines the value of poetry and confirms the exclusive nature of intellectual friendship.
Author : Gideon Avni
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 441 pages
File Size : 15,56 MB
Release : 2014-01-30
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0191507342
Using a comprehensive evaluation of recent archaeological findings, Avni addresses the transformation of local societies in Palestine and Jordan between the sixth and eleventh centuries AD. Arguing that these archaeological findings provide a reliable, though complex, picture, Avni illustrates how the Byzantine-Islamic transition was a much slower and gradual process than previously thought, and that it involved regional variability, different types of populations, and diverse settlement patterns. Based on the results of hundreds of excavations, including Avni's own surveys and excavations in the Negev, Beth Guvrin, Jerusalem, and Ramla, the volume reconstructs patterns of continuity and change in settlements during this turbulent period, evaluating the process of change in a dynamic multicultural society and showing that the coming of Islam had no direct effect on settlement patterns and material culture of the local population. The change in settlement, stemming from internal processes rather than from external political powers, culminated gradually during the Early Islamic period. However, the process of Islamization was slow, and by the eve of the Crusader period Christianity still had an overwhelming majority in Palestine and Jordan.
