Worlds of Byzantium

Offers a fresh and expanded understanding of what it means to study the history and culture of the Byzantine empire.

Privileging culture and language over politics, this book offers an expanded understanding of what it means to study the Byzantine empire in the late antique and medieval periods, one that explicitly includes the Christian populations of the Muslim-ruled Middle East as well as neighbouring states like Ethiopia and Armenia.Worlds of Byzantium offers a new understanding of what it means to study the history and visual culture of the Byzantine empire during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Arguing that linguistic and cultural frontiers do not always coincide with political ones, it suggests that Byzantine studies should look not only within but also beyond the borders of the Byzantine empire and include the history of Christian populations in the Muslim-ruled Middle East and neighbouring states like Ethiopia and Armenia and integrate more closely with Judaic and Islamic studies. With essays by leading scholars in a wide range of fields, it offers a vision of a richly interconnected eastern Mediterranean and Near East that will be of interest to anyone who studies the premodern world.