Sunday 15 October 2017

New issue of JEEH!




John Haldon, who teaches history at Princeton University, has produced an accomplished and admirable book. Not only has The Empire That Would Not Die: The Paradox of Eastern Roman Survival, 640-740 (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. - London, 2016) attracted the attention of the community of specialists in the field of Late Antiquity, but it has also gained a wider audience among historians and social scientists with their own distinct ‘take’ on key issues that have engaged scholars for decades. Haldon’s analysis proves particularly engaging as it employs concepts of resiliency, survival, and reproduction that challenge the current approach to such questions as imperial collapse, systems collapse, and failure. The editors have accordingly invited four eminent scholars – Yannis Stouraitis (University of Vienna), Michele Campopiano (University of York), Salvatore Cosentino (University of Bologna) and Federico Montinaro (University of Tübingen) – to offer their reflections on the book. Their assessments are preceded by a cogent introductory note by Paolo Tedesco, editor of the Symposium and tireless collaborator of the JEEH.

One preliminary remark: This Symposium should not be read as a review of Haldon’s book, but, rather, as a series of connected studies that use Haldon’s historical analysis as a jumping-off point for further consideration of key issues at the heart of the current historiographical debate. It is the fruit of cooperation between the editors of The Journal of European Economic History and the Centre for Advanced Studies “Migration and Mobility in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages” based at the University of Tübingen. Under the aegis of Mischa Meier, Stefan Patzold and Sebastian Schmidt-Hofner, the Centre explores new approaches to migration and mobility in the period in question, with a view to setting scholarly debate on a new footing. The contributors and editors hope to advance our understanding of social and economic relations in an important and fascinating period of history, and also to set out theoretical and methodological issues for the study of the contemporary world.

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Identities and Ideologies in the Medieval East Roman World , edited by Yannis Stouraitis, Edinburgh Byzantine Studies (Edinburgh: Edinburgh ...