Title The empire that would not die : the paradox of eastern Roman survival, 640-740 / John Haldon

Published Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2016

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Description 1 online resource (xii, 418 pages) : illustrations, maps Series Carl Newell Jackson Lectures ; 13 Contents Introduction: Goldilocks in Byzantium -- The challenge: a framework for collapse -- Beliefs, narratives, and the moral universe -- Identities, divisions, and solidarities -- Elites and identities -- Regional variation and resistance -- Some environmental factors -- Organisation, cohesion, and survival -- A conclusion Summary "In the middle of the sixth century the eastern Roman (Byzantine) empire was the largest state in western Eurasia. A century later it was a fraction of the size, its eastern provinces torn away by the early Islamic conquests in the middle of the seventh century. It had lost three-quarters of its lands and probably more of its tax revenues. How did it survive beyond the year 700 CE? Surrounded on all sides by challenges, most particularly from the dynamism and strength of the Islamic Caliphate, it should not have done: massively outnumbered and out-resourced, its territory repeatedly and continuously laid waste, its towns turned to fortresses, its population decimated by warfare and plague, even the capital, Constantinople, the largest city in the western world, besieged and threatened. Yet it did survive. By bringing together evidence for beliefs, identities and attitudes, administrative structures and the search for resources, the organization of its armies and the system of crisis management in its tax system, this book seeks to locate and describe the mechanisms of survival. The author places all these developments into their environmental context, looking at how the Byzantine state benefited from small-scale climatic changes--of which it was, of course, largely unaware--and how, together with other elements, these created the conditions that permitted the eastern Roman empire not just to survive, but indeed to recover sufficiently to mount its own major challenge to the Islamic world in subsequent centuries."--Provided by publisher Notes "Based on the Carl Newell Jackson Lectures"--Half title page Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes In English Online resource; title from PDF title page (EBSCO, viewed March 24, 2016) Subject War and society -- Byzantine Empire Human ecology -- Byzantine Empire HISTORY -- Europe -- General. HISTORY -- Ancient -- Rome. Diplomatic relations Human ecology Politics and government War and society SUBJECT Byzantine Empire -- History -- 527-1081. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85018488 Byzantine Empire -- Foreign relations -- Islamic Empire Byzantine Empire -- Politics and government -- 527-1081. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85018521 Subject Byzantine Empire Islamic Empire Genre/Form History Form Electronic book LC no. 2015033363 ISBN 9780674969193 0674969197 0674969170 9780674969179

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