ISBN : 9780195336931
The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity offers an innovative overview of a period (c. 300-700 CE) that has become increasingly central to scholarly debates over the history of western and Middle Eastern civilizations. This volume covers such pivotal events as the fall of Rome, the rise of Christianity, the origins of Islam, and the early formation of Byzantium and the European Middle Ages. These events are set in the context of widespread literary, artistic, cultural, and religious change during the period. The geographical scope of this handbook is unparalleled among comparable surveys of Late Antiquity; Arabia, Egypt, Central Asia, and the Balkans all receive dedicated treatments, while the scope extends to the western kingdoms, Ireland, and Scandinavia in the West. Furthemore, from economic theory and slavery to Greek and Latin poetry, Syriac and Coptic literature, sites of religious devotion, and many others, this handbook covers a wide range of topics that will appeal to scholars from a diverse array of disciplines. The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity engages the perennially valuable questions about the end of the ancient world and the beginning of the medieval, while providing a much-needed touchstone for the study of Late Antiquity itself.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PREFACE: SCOFF F. JOHNSON
INTRODUCTION: LATE ANTIQUE CONCEPTIONS OF LATE ANTIQUITY, HERVE INGLEBERT
PART I. GEOGRAPHIES AND PEOPLES
PART II. LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL CULTURES
III. LAW, STATE, AND SOCIAL STRUCTURES
PART IV. RELIGIONS AND RELIGIOUS IDENTITY
PART V. LATE ANTIQUITY IN PERSPECTIVE