Western civilization owes an incalculable cultural and historical debt to the Byzantine Empire. Before falling to the Ottoman Turks in the mid-fifteenth century, the empire flourished for more than a thousand years, bridging the ancient and modern worlds. Byzantium profoundly influenced the pattern of cultural and political development in the lands it occupied and had an enduring influence on neighboring societies.
A Social History of Byzantium delves into a crucial and often neglected strand of Byzantine studies – the social history of the eastern Roman Empire. Drawing on a wealth of new research and with original essays by leading scholars, this groundbreaking work addresses a wide range of interconnected topics and offers illuminating insights into our knowledge of Byzantine society. Exploring such issues as family life, social structure, religion, class, gender, and imperial power, this book reveals the complex social structure woven throughout the Byzantine world.
About the Author
John Haldon is Professor of Byzantine History and Hellenic Studies at Princeton University, and is an internationally recognized scholar in the field of late Roman and Byzantine social, economic, and institutional history. His books include Warfare, State, and Society in the Byzantine World (1999), Byzantium: A History (2000), Byzantium at War (2002) and The Oxford Handbook of Byzantium Studies (editor with E. Jeffreys and R. Cormack, 2008).
