Research Catalog

Romanland : ethnicity and empire in Byzantium

Title
Romanland : ethnicity and empire in Byzantium / Anthony Kaldellis.
Author
Kaldellis, Anthony
Publication
  • Cambridge, Massachusetts : The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019.
  • ©2019

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StatusFormatAccessCall NumberItem Location
TextUse in library JFE 19-5270Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315

Details

Description
xv, 373 pages; 25 cm
Summary
"Was there ever such a thing as the Byzantine Empire and who were those self-professed Romans we choose to call "Byzantine" today? At the heart of these two interlinked questions is Anthony Kaldellis's assertion that empires are, by definition, multiethnic. If there was indeed such a thing as the Byzantine Empire, which rules bounded majority and minority ethnic groups? The labels for the minority groups in Byzantium are clear - Slavs, Bulgarians, Armenians, Jews, Muslims. What was the ethnicity of the majority group? Historical evidence tells us unequivocally that no card-carrying Byzantine ever called himself "Byzantine." He would identify as Roman. This line of identification was so strong in the eastern empire that even the conquering Ottomans saw themselves as inheritors of the Roman Empire. In Western scholarship, however, there has been a long tradition of denying Romanness to Byzantium. In the Middle Ages, people of the eastern empire were made "Greeks," and by the nineteenth century they were shorn of their distorted Greekness and turned "Byzantine." In Romanland, Kaldellis argues that it is time for historians to take the Romanness of Byzantines seriously so that we can better understand the relations between Romans and non-Romans, as well as the processes of assimilation that led to the absorption of foreign groups into the Roman genos"--Provided by publisher.
Alternative Title
Ethnicity and empire in Byzantium
Subjects
Genre/Form
History.
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents
Romans. A history of denial -- Roman ethnicity -- Romanland -- Others. Ethnic assimilation -- The Armenian fallacy -- Was Byzantium an empire in the tenth century? -- The apogee of empire in the eleventh century.
Call Number
JFE 19-5270
ISBN
  • 9780674986510
  • 0674986512
LCCN
2018038001
OCLC
1032717857
Author
Kaldellis, Anthony, author.
Title
Romanland : ethnicity and empire in Byzantium / Anthony Kaldellis.
Publisher
Cambridge, Massachusetts : The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019.
Copyright Date
©2019
Type of Content
text
Type of Medium
unmediated
Type of Carrier
volume
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Research Call Number
JFE 19-5270
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