Sailing Away from Byzantium Toward East Roman History

Name: Sailing Away from Byzantium Toward East Roman History
Brand: Cambridge University Press
Availability: OutOfStock
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By Leonora Neville

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Description

Although the first thing one learns about the 'Byzantine Empire' is that it was really the eastern Roman empire, scholars have preferred to call it 'Byzantine' in a repudiation of the self-conception and emic vocabulary of the inhabitants of that polity. The terminology of 'Byzantium' artificially severs the 'medieval' eastern Roman empire from its 'classical' roots allowing for the fundamentally Eurocentric schematization of history into 'ancient,' 'medieval,' and 'Renaissance' periods. 'Byzantine' is not a benign term of art but has served a variety of political and historiographical agendas including maintaining nationalist visions of ethnic continuity, creating precedents for communism, enabling politics of nostalgia for Orthodox dominion, and constructing visions of western European superiority and masculinity that justify colonialism. By exploring these intellectual legacies of 'Byzantium,' and the benefits of conceptualizing Roman history as an unsevered whole, this Element exhorts scholars to let go of the 'Byzantine' misnomer.

Product details

Number of Pages:: 70
Release Date:: 2025-07-03
Publication Date:: 2025-06-09
Publisher:: Cambridge University Press
Languages:: Original: English
ISBN10:: 1009595555
ISBN13:: 9781009595551
Weight:: 266 g
Height:: 157 cm
Width:: 235 cm
Thickness:: 9 cm

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