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Representing the different images, 'names', and 'faces' of the 'Other' in the Eurasian Steppes during the period between the sixth and ninth/tenth centuries, this book broadens the scholars' views on nomads' life and mentalities.
In Waiting for the End of the World: European Dimensions, 950-1200, Tsvetelin Stepanov offers a fresh, pan-European, look at a phenomenon that was typical not only for the Christians, but also for the other two monotheistic religions in Europe.
In Waiting for the End of the World: European Dimensions, 950–1200, Tsvetelin Stepanov offers a fresh, pan-European, look at a phenomenon that was typical not only for the Christians, but also for the other two monotheistic religions in Europe.
This book explores the widespread mass conversions to Christianity and Islam that took place in Europe and Asia in the ninth to eleventh centuries. Taking a comparative perspective, contributors explore the processes at work in these conversions. Focusing on Christianity and Islam, it contrasts religious conversion in the period with earlier conversions, including those of Manichaeism in central Asia; Buddhism in east Asia; and Judaism in Khazaria, exploring why conversions to Christianity and Islam led to centralized political structures.
By applying a comparative approach the volume focuses on a select group of „empires“ which are generally not in the focus of empires studies. They are studied in detail and analyzed due to a strict concept that takes into account real history and reception history as well. Reception history becomes more and more an important element in empire studies although this topic is still often more or less underdeveloped. The volume singles out a series of such “forgotten empires”. It aims to provide a methodologically clearly structured as well as a uniform and consistent approach. It develops a general set of questions that help to compare and distinguish these entities. This way the volume intends to examine and to illuminate empires that are generally ignored by modern scholarship.
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This book traces the establishment of a master narrative of the Middle Ages in Bulgaria and its evolution to the present day, including the attempt at a Marxist counter-narrative, thereby offering a critical analysis of Bulgarian historiographical views.
This book explores the history of banditry in the medieval Balkans between the ninth and fifteenth centuries. While several scholars have recognized the problems which various outlaw groups caused in the region during the Middle Ages, few have given much attention to the bandits themselves, their origins, their reasons for taking up brigandage, and the steps taken by the central authorities to control their activity. Among other things, this book identifies three main sources of banditry: shepherds, soldiers and peasants. Far from being ʻlone wolvesʼ, these men operated within well-defined social networks. Poverty played a decisive role in driving them to a life of crime, but there is strong evidence to suggest that the growing economic prosperity in parts of the Balkans from the ninth century onwards may have also contributed to the rise of the phenomenon.
Drawing on archaeological and narrative sources, this collection of studies offers a fresh look at some of the most interesting aspects of the current research on the medieval nomads of Eastern Europe.
The Avars arrived in Europe from the Central Asian steppes in the mid-sixth century CE and dominated much of Central and Eastern Europe for almost 250 years. Fierce warriors and canny power brokers, the Avars were more influential and durable than Attila's Huns, yet have remained hidden in history. Walter Pohl's epic narrative, translated into English for the first time, restores them to their rightful place in the story of early medieval Europe. The Avars offers a comprehensive overview of their history, tracing the Avars from the construction of their steppe empire in the center of Europe; their wars and alliances with the Byzantines, Slavs, Lombards, and others; their apex as the first so...