New Rome

Brings the world of New Rome alive with exceptional learning and a magnificent openness to modern scientific methods that breathe life into conventional narratives of political and social history. * The New York Review of Books *
A wonderfully sharp eye for data and detail. ... I have been quoting passages and surprising facts to everyone around me ever since putting it down. * The Critic *
Conventional histories of the last days of the Roman Empire will no longer suffice after you read this book. -- Averil Cameron, author * Byzantine Matters *
The most compelling fusion yet of narrative history with the recent findings of environmental research and scientific data. -- Anthony Kaldellis, author * Romanland *
Stephenson's gift for narrative is matched by an eye for arresting images and quirky anecdotes that will surprise and delight even jaded readers. -- Michael Kulikowski, author of Imperial Tragedy
Casts brilliant shafts of light on the material conditions and spiritual quests of the ruling and the ruled ... masterly -- Jonathan Shepard, editor of The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire
A new book from the historian Paul Stephenson centers on the Byzantine world in the period 395-700 A.D., combining modern scientific methods with traditional history to explain which parts of Rome migrated east and what became of them. * The New Criterion *
Stephenson explores evidence of climate change caused by volcanic eruption and earthquakes not so much as an engine for political change as a permanent threat to the human environment ... [he] draws with great skill and an eye for detail on the stories embedded in surviving papyri, on laws, and on saints' lives. -- Andrew Louth * Los Angeles Review of Books *