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Three - Byzantium and the Turn to the East

from I - Patterns, Paradigms, Scholarship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2024

By
Averil Cameron
Edited by
Elizabeth S. Bolman ,
Scott Fitzgerald Johnson  and
Jack Tannous
Elizabeth S. Bolman
Affiliation:
Case Western Reserve University, Ohio
Scott Fitzgerald Johnson
Affiliation:
University of Oklahoma
Jack Tannous
Affiliation:
Princeton University, New Jersey
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Summary

Great changes have taken place in the approach of historians to the topic since the publication of East of Byzantium (1980). Instead of centre-periphery or top-down models they now see the relations between Byzantium and the east in terms of connectivity, networks and horizontal ties. This is connected with the spread of late antiquity as a concept and includes a great expansion in Syriac studies. Late antiquity now embraces the emergence of Islam and looks towards Eurasia; another challenge is posed by the rise of global history. But these developments, with the new focus on the fall of the western empire, raise major problems of identity for Byzantium itself, and indeed for western Europe.

Keywords

ConstantinopleByzantium/Byzantinelate antiquityIslamturn to the eastEurasiaRomansArabia/Arabianmonotheismidentity
Type
Chapter
Information
Worlds of Byzantium
Religion, Culture, and Empire in the Medieval Near East
 , pp. 62 - 77
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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