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clingingmars's avatar

These people were obviously never present for an Uncle Razib lecture where you promise to make them famous. Promises made...promises kept.

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Mike J's avatar

Some other good byzantine history reading:

Michael Angold - The Byzantine Empire 1025-1204: A Political History. This takes you through an incredible sequence of events. The Romans are on top of the world in 1025, and in 50 years they have completely blown it and are losing their Anatolian heartland, which they had always been able to defend against the Arabs. Then they get it back together for about 100 years with the Komnenos dynasty and then fall apart again. The Larger lesson being that political systems and state structures can be quite fragile and respond to stress in self-destructive ways.

Mark Whittow - The Making of Byzantium, 600-1025. Takes you from the 7th century collapse through the long recovery and closes at the peak with strong focus on the limitations imposed by geography. Very interesting take on Basil II, whom he sees as a "traditionalist/reactionary" repudiating the 10th century conquest era with its focus on multi-ethnic alliances with Armenians and other eastern non-orthodox christians in favor of a return to Constantinople-centered orthodoxy. Implicit is the thought that the decline began with Basil, not after him.

Any books by Anthony Kaldellis. Kaldellis likes to stir things up and some of his arguments seem a bit out there as in Byzantine Republic, but in Romanland he is pretty hard to argue with on the fundamental Roman identity of the empire, and the bad faith agenda of the western world in trying to obscure that identity. Kaldellis has an interesting podcast as well.

Peter Sarris in Empires of Faith is looking at the entire late antique / early medieval world, not just Byzantium, but very interesting throughout, and interesting views on the 7th century collapse and early attempts at recovery.

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