Format:
xii, 20 ungezählte Seiten, 432 Seiten
,
Illustrationen, Karten
Edition:
First Harvard University Press edition
ISBN:
9780674659629
Content:
〈p〉〈b〉A comprehensive new history of the Eastern Roman Empire based on the science of the human past.〈/b〉As modern empires rise and fall, ancient Rome becomes ever more significant. We yearn for Rome’s power but fear Rome’s ruin—will we turn out like the Romans, we wonder, or can we escape their fate? That question has obsessed centuries of historians and leaders, who have explored diverse political, religious, and economic forces to explain Roman decline. Yet the decisive factor remains elusive.In 〈i〉New Rome〈/i〉, Paul Stephenson looks beyond traditional texts and well-known artifacts to offer a novel, scientifically-minded interpretation of antiquity’s end. It turns out that the descent of Rome is inscribed not only in parchments but also in ice cores and DNA. From these and other sources, we learn that pollution and pandemics influenced the fate of Constantinople and the Eastern Roman Empire. During its final five centuries, the empire in the east survived devastation by natural disasters, the degradation of the human environment, and pathogens previously unknown to the empire’s densely populated, unsanitary cities. Despite the Plague of Justinian, regular “barbarian” invasions, a war with Persia, and the rise of Islam, the empire endured as a political entity. However, Greco-Roman civilization, a world of interconnected cities that had shared a common material culture for a millennium, did not.Politics, war, and religious strife drove the transformation of Eastern Rome, but they do not tell the whole story. Braiding the political history of the empire together with its urban, material, environmental, and epidemiological history, 〈i〉New Rome〈/i〉 offers the most comprehensive explanation to date of the Eastern Empire’s transformation into Byzantium.〈/p〉
Note:
First published in Great Britain in 2021 as "New Rome : the Roman Empire in the East, AD 395-700"
Additional Edition:
Erscheint auch als Online-Ausgabe, epub 9780674269453
Additional Edition:
Erscheint auch als Online-Ausgabe, pdf 9780674269460
Language:
English
Keywords:
Byzantinisches Reich
;
Geschichte Anfänge
;
Römisches Reich
;
Untergang
Bookmarklink
