Pulse en una miniatura para ir a Google Books.
Cargando... Justinian's Balkan Wars: Campaigning, Diplomacy and Development in Illyricum, Thrace and the Northern World A.D. 527-65por Alexander Constantine Sarantis
Ninguno Cargando...
Inscríbete en LibraryThing para averiguar si este libro te gustará. Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. Ninguna reseña
Based on the author’s 2006 Oxford doctoral dissertation, Alexander Sarantis has produced a valuable and illuminating treatment of the under-studied Balkan theatre during the reign of Justinian. While the tight focus of the book permits Sarantis to delve deeply into the varied source material, its conclusions extend beyond the reign of Justinian and have broader implications for the political and military history of late antique and early medieval western Eurasia. This is the best sort of military history. In a field that produces no shortage of (often excellent) work on the reification of ethnic communities or subversive intertextual discourses, Alexander Sarantis writes about forts, roads, equipment, diplomacy, and coin hoards, and he does it very well. Even so, it would be inaccurate to label Sarantis a 'traditional' historian because he heeds many of the warnings of postmodernity. He has taken the linguistic turn and is a subtle and circumspect reader of texts. Ultimately, though, the present volume is in the business of marshaling vast amounts of data from an array of sources to reconstruct what happened. Justinian's Balkan Wars is an impressive success. The main premise of Justinian’s Balkan Wars is an observation that secondary works on the emperor Justinian follow Procopius (Secret History 11.5) in neglecting the emperor’s Balkan policies and viewing them as of secondary importance (p. 4). Alexander Sarantis also emphasises that the majority of these works focus either on particular groups of barbarians or on particular regions of the Balkans. In his opinion, this is due to the widely-held view of the low strategic importance of the Balkans in Justinian’s plans. The author therefore intends not only to fill this gap, but also to prove that Justinian was far from treating the Balkans as a less politically or strategically important area of the empire.
Justinian's Balkan Wars is the first history of military and diplomatic affairs in the Roman provinces south of the River Danube during the reign of the Emperor Justinian (A.D. 527-65). The Emperor's policies in this region have received little attention from modern historians, who have focussed on his struggles with the Sassanian Persian empire in the East, and, in the West, his glorious reconquests of Italy from the Goths and Africa from the Vandals. This comparative neglect reflects the influence of the contemporary historian Procopius, who (following his own bias) viewed the Balkans under Justinian as a backwater denuded of manpower and left vulnerable to the depredations of barbarian raiders. In contrast Justinian's Balkan Wars argues that the Emperor was fully aware of the region's vital strategic importance, and frequently committed more effort and resources there than in other theatres of operation. Justinian's Balkan Wars offers a detailed reconstruction of military and diplomatic relations between the Germanic, Hunnic and Slavic peoples north of the Danube frontier and Justinian's eastern Roman Empire. It uses a variety of contemporary histories and chronicles to chart barbarian raids, imperial campaigns and the receptions of barbarian leaders in the glittering halls of the imperial capital, Constantinople. In doing so it sketches the contours of Justinian's Balkan strategy and its relationship to other theatres of operation such as the Italian Peninsula and the Transcaucasus. The book draws on administrative reforms, epigraphic and numismatic evidence, and the archaeology of settlement patterns to place these historical events in a wider socio-economic and physical context. It shows the importance of infrastructure, logistical preparation, political control and the support of local hearts and minds for successful campaigning in Late Antiquity. Justinian's energetic military, diplomatic, and development policies in the Balkans ensured that the eastern Roman Empire in general prevailed against its barbarian opponents. Hence the eventual loss of Roman control over the majority of the Balkan provinces and their colonisation by Slavic tribes in the 7th c. was by no means inevitable when Justinian died in 565. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
Debates activosNinguno
Google Books — Cargando... GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)949.5013History and Geography Europe Other parts Greece and the Byzantine Empire Byzantine Empire -- 323-1453 Greek revivial 323-716Clasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio: No hay valoraciones.¿Eres tú?Conviértete en un Autor de LibraryThing. |