That is an astounding review. I was an aspiring Byzantine historian at one time (more of a focus on Arab-Byzantine relations), but I would have loved to have read a book like this at the time. You are absolutely correct that so many of the studies of these border regions and marches or the early middle ages are very outdated. And many of them follow the episodic style of Gibbon. So it feels sometimes as if you’re just reading another Gibbon fan’s take of “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” instead of anything new. But then those sources that are described can be quite frustrating. Even as an Islamist, I found myself irritated by the monastic chroniclers who boil down entire decades sometimes to a single portentous event and leave it at that. “In X year it was God’s will that [insert random town] be taken by the heathen. And this was portended when a heifer gave birth to a two-headed calf.” I’m going to see if this book is available on Amazon at an affordable price.
Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful response Daniel, to which I wish I could respond in greater detail now. However, I must power down as in true Balkan fashion, the heat wave has broken, there is flooding and hail and thunder out there, and it looks like we must batton down the hatches, Never uneventful here!
That is an astounding review. I was an aspiring Byzantine historian at one time (more of a focus on Arab-Byzantine relations), but I would have loved to have read a book like this at the time. You are absolutely correct that so many of the studies of these border regions and marches or the early middle ages are very outdated. And many of them follow the episodic style of Gibbon. So it feels sometimes as if you’re just reading another Gibbon fan’s take of “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” instead of anything new. But then those sources that are described can be quite frustrating. Even as an Islamist, I found myself irritated by the monastic chroniclers who boil down entire decades sometimes to a single portentous event and leave it at that. “In X year it was God’s will that [insert random town] be taken by the heathen. And this was portended when a heifer gave birth to a two-headed calf.” I’m going to see if this book is available on Amazon at an affordable price.
Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful response Daniel, to which I wish I could respond in greater detail now. However, I must power down as in true Balkan fashion, the heat wave has broken, there is flooding and hail and thunder out there, and it looks like we must batton down the hatches, Never uneventful here!
Once again, thanks for cluing me into a time and place I know nothing about.