The articles here aim to develop and expand Professor Garsoïan's earlier research on the bilateral influences on Early-Christian Armenia, between Byzantium and the Sasanians. On the one hand, they continue her examination of Armenia's essentially Iranian society and institutions in the 4th-7th centuries; on the other, they are directed to an investigation of its autocephalous Church. This maintained relations with the Antiochene Christological school it shared with the Church of Persia longer than has been generally admitted, but simultaneously brought about an ideological transformation through which Christianity came to define the Armenian identity in the national tradition.

I.B.Tauris in association with the Iran Heritage Foundation Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire has been acclaimed as one of the most intellectually exciting books about late antique Persia to have been published for years. It proposes a convincing contemporary answer to an age-old mystery and conundrum: why, in the seventh century ce, did the seemingly powerful and secure Sasanian empire of Persia succumb so quickly and disastrously to the all-conquering armies of Islam? In her bold solution to this enigma, Parvaneh Pourshariati explains that the decentralized dynastic system of the Sasanian ruling hierarchy in fact contained the seeds of its own destruction. This confederacy, whose powerbase relied on patronage and preferment, eventually became unstable, and its degeneration sealed the fate of a doomed dynasty.

Byzantium is more and more recognized as a vibrant culture in dialogue with neighbouring regions, political entities, and peoples. Where better to look for this kind of dynamism than in the interactions between the Byzantines and the Armenians? Warfare and diplomacy are only one part of that story. The more enduring part consists of contact and mutual influence brokered by individuals who were conversant in both cultures and languages. The articles in this volume feature fresh work by younger and established scholars that illustrate the varieties of interaction in the fields of literature, material culture, and religion. Contributors are: Gert Boersema, Emilio Bonfiglio, Bernard Coulie, Karen Hamada, Robin Meyer, Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, Claudia Rapp, Mark Roosien, Werner Seibt, Emmanuel Van Elverdinghe, Theo Maarten van Lint, Alexandra-Kyriaki Wassiliou-Seibt, and David Zakarian.

Byzantium lasted a thousand years, ruled to the end by self-styled 'emperors of the Romans'. It underwent kaleidoscopic territorial and structural changes, yet recovered repeatedly from disaster: even after the near-impregnable Constantinople fell in 1204, variant forms of the empire reconstituted themselves. The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire c.500-1492 tells the story, tracing political and military events, religious controversies and economic change. It offers clear, authoritative chapters on the main events and periods, with more detailed chapters on outlying regions and neighbouring societies and powers of Byzantium. With aids such as maps, a glossary, an alternative place-name table and references to English translations of sources, it will be valuable as an introduction. However, it also offers stimulating new approaches and important findings, making it essential reading for postgraduates and for specialists. The revised paperback edition contains a new preface by the editor and will offer an invaluable companion to survey courses in Byzantine history.

Georgian literary sources for Late Antiquity are commonly held to be later productions devoid of historical value. As a result, scholarship outside the Republic of Georgia has privileged Graeco-Roman and even Armenian narratives. However, when investigated within the dual contexts of a regional literary canon and the active participation of Caucasia’s diverse peoples in the Iranian Commonwealth, early Georgian texts emerge as a rich repository of late antique attitudes and outlooks. Georgian hagiographical and historiographical compositions open a unique window onto a northern part of the Sasanian world that, while sharing striking affinities with the Iranian heartland, was home to vibrant, cosmopolitan cultures that developed along their own trajectories. In these sources, precise and accurate information about the core of the Sasanian Empire-and before it, Parthia and Achaemenid Persia-is sparse; yet the thorough structuring of wider Caucasian society along Iranian and especially hybrid Iranic lines is altogether evident. Scrutiny of these texts reveals, inter alia, that the Old Georgian language is saturated with words drawn from Parthian and Middle Persian, a trait shared with Classical Armenian; that Caucasian society, like its Iranian counterpart, was dominated by powerful aristocratic houses, many of whose origins can be traced to Iran itself; and that the conception of kingship in the eastern Georgian realm of K’art’li (Iberia), even centuries after the royal family’s Christianisation in the 320s and 330s, was closely aligned with Arsacid and especially Sasanian models. There is also a literary dimension to the Irano-Caucasian nexus, aspects of which this volume exposes for the first time. The oldest surviving specimens of Georgian historiography exhibit intriguing parallels to the lost Sasanian Xwadāy-nāmag, The Book of Kings, one of the precursors to Ferdowsī’s Shāhnāma. As tangible products of the dense cross-cultural web drawing the re

The transition zone between Africa, Asia and Europe was the most important intersection of human mobility in the medieval period. The present volume for the first time systematically covers migration histories of the regions between the Mediterranean and Central Asia and between Eastern Europe and the Indian Ocean in the centuries from Late Antiquity up to the early modern era. Within this framework, specialists from Byzantine, Islamic, Medieval and African history provide detailed analyses of specific regions and groups of migrants, both elites and non-elites as well as voluntary and involuntary. Thereby, also current debates of migration studies are enriched with a new dimension of deep historical time. Contributors are: Alexander Beihammer, Lutz Berger, Florin Curta, Charalampos Gasparis, George Hatke, Dirk Hoerder, Johannes Koder, Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, Lucian Reinfandt, Youval Rotman, Yannis Stouraitis, Panayiotis Theodoropoulos, and Myriam Wissa.