The Emperor John II Komnenos (1118–1143) has been overshadowed by both his father Alexios I and his son Manuel I. Written sources have not left us much evidence regarding his reign, although authors agree that he was an excellent emperor. However, the period witnessed territorial expansion in Asia Minor as well as the construction of the most important monastic complex of twelfth-century Constantinople. What else do we know about John’s rule and its period? This volume opens up new perspectives on John’s reign and clearly demonstrates that many innovations generally attributed to the genius of Manuel Komnenos had already been fostered during the reign of the second great Komnenos. Leading experts on twelfth-century Byzantium (Jeffreys, Magdalino, Ousterhout) are joined by representatives of a new generation of Byzantinists to produce a timely and invaluable study of the unjustly neglected figure of John Komnenos.

The Emperor John II Komnenos (1118–1143) has been overshadowed by both his father Alexios I and his son Manuel I. Written sources have not left us much evidence regarding his reign, although authors agree that he was an excellent emperor. However, the period witnessed territorial expansion in Asia Minor as well as the construction of the most important monastic complex of twelfth-century Constantinople. What else do we know about John’s rule and its period? This volume opens up new perspectives on John’s reign and clearly demonstrates that many innovations generally attributed to the genius of Manuel Komnenos had already been fostered during the reign of the second great Komnenos. Leading experts on twelfth-century Byzantium (Jeffreys, Magdalino, Ousterhout) are joined by representatives of a new generation of Byzantinists to produce a timely and invaluable study of the unjustly neglected figure of John Komnenos.

John II Komnenos was born into an empire on the brink of destruction, with his father Alexios barely preserving the empire in the face of civil wars and invasions. A hostage to crusaders as a child, married to a Hungarian princess as a teenager to win his father an alliance, and leading his own campaigns when his father died, it was left to John to try and rebuild the empire all but lost in the eleventh century. This book, the first English language study on John and his era, re-evaluates an emperor traditionally overlooked in favour of his father, hero of the Alexiad written by John's sister Anna, and of his son Manuel, acclaimed for reigning at the height of Komnenian power. John's reign is one of contradictions, as his capital of New Rome/Constantinople was to fall to the armies of the Fourth Crusade just over sixty years after he died, and yet his descendants led vibrant successor states based in the lands that John reconquered. His reign lacks a dominant textual source, and so this history is related as much through personal letters, court literature, archaeology, and foreign accounts as through traditional historical narratives. This study includes extensive study of the landscapes, castles, and cities John built and campaigned through, and provides a guide to the world in which John lived. It covers the empire's neighbours and rivals, the turning points of ecclesiastical history, the shaping of the crusader movement, and the workings of Byzantine government and administration.

Twelfth-century Byzantium is characterized by a striking artistic vitality and profound socio-political changes. The Constantinopolitan elites, led by the Komnenian dynasty initiated by Alexios I, were the driving force behind the renewed intellectual landscape and power dynamics of the century. Despite the wealth of studies devoted to the Komnenians, the sebastokrator Isaac (1093–after 1152) has received limited attention in modern scholarship. Yet, Isaac is a fascinating figure at the crossroads of different worlds. He was an intellectual, the author of the first running commentary on the Iliad ever written in Byzantium. He was a patron, sponsoring magnificent buildings and supporting artists in and outside the capital. He was a would-be usurper, attempting to seize the throne several times. He was a shrewd diplomat, forging alliances with Armenian, Turkish, and Latin rulers. Modern scholars have so far failed to see the interplay between Isaac’s multiple personae. Isaac the scholar is rarely brought into conversation with Isaac the usurper, Isaac the patron, or Isaac the world traveller. Bringing together experts from a range of disciplines, this book fills a significant gap in the literature. As the first comprehensive study of one of the protagonists of the Komnenian era, it is essential reading for students of the Byzantine Empire. In addition, the portrait of Isaac presented here provides scholars of pre-modern civilizations with a relevant case study. By exposing the permeability of the theoretical and geographical ‘borders’ we use to conceptualize the past, Isaac epitomizes the interconnectedness at the heart of the so-called Global Middle Ages.

From Constantinople to the Frontier: The City and the Cities provides twenty-five articles addressing the concept of centres and peripheries in the late antique and Byzantine worlds, focusing specifically on urban aspects of this paradigm. Spanning from the fourth to thirteenth centuries, and ranging from the later Roman empires to the early Caliphate and medieval New Rome, the chapters reveal the range of factors involved in the dialectic between City, cities, and frontier. Including contributions on political, social, literary, and artistic history, and covering geographical areas throughout the central and eastern Mediterranean, this volume provides a kaleidoscopic view of how human actions and relationships worked with, within, and between urban spaces and the periphery, and how these spaces and relationships were themselves ideologically constructed and understood. Contributors are Walter F. Beers, Lorenzo M. Bondioli, Christopher Bonura, Lynton Boshoff, Averil Cameron, Jeremiah Coogan, Robson Della Torre, Pavla Drapelova, Nicholas Evans, David Gyllenhaal, Franka Horvat, Theofili Kampianaki, Maximilian Lau, Valeria Flavia Lovato, Byron MacDougall, Nicholas S.M. Matheou, Daniel Neary, Jonas Nilsson, Cecilia Palombo, Maria Alessia Rossi, Roman Shliakhtin, Sarah C. Simmons, Andrew M. Small, Jakub Sypiański, Vincent Tremblay and Philipp Winterhager.

This comparative study explores three key cultural and political spheres – the Latin west, Byzantium and the Islamic world from Central Asia to the Atlantic – roughly from the emergence of Islam to the fall of Constantinople. These spheres drew on a shared pool of late antique Mediterranean culture, philosophy and science, and they had monotheism and historical antecedents in common. Yet where exactly political and spiritual power lay, and how it was exercised, differed. This book focuses on power dynamics and resource-allocation among ruling elites; the legitimisation of power and property with the aid of religion; and on rulers' interactions with local elites and societies. Offering the reader route-maps towards navigating each sphere and grasping the fundamentals of its political culture, this set of parallel studies offers a timely and much needed framework for comparing the societies surrounding the medieval Mediterranean.

Surveying the expanding conflict in Europe during one of his famous fireside chats in 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt ominously warned that "we know of other methods, new methods of attack. The Trojan horse. The fifth column that betrays a nation unprepared for treachery. Spies, saboteurs, and traitors are the actors in this new strategy." Having identified a new type of war--a shadow war--being perpetrated by Hitler's Germany, FDR decided to fight fire with fire, authorizing the formation of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) to organize and oversee covert operations. Based on an extensive analysis of OSS records, including the vast trove of records released by the CIA in the 1980s and '90s, as well as a new set of interviews with OSS veterans conducted by the author and a team of American scholars from 1995 to 1997, The Shadow War Against Hitler is the full story of America's far-flung secret intelligence apparatus during World War II. In addition to its responsibilities generating, processing, and interpreting intelligence information, the OSS orchestrated all manner of dark operations, including extending feelers to anti-Hitler elements, infiltrating spies and sabotage agents behind enemy lines, and implementing propaganda programs. Planned and directed from Washington, the anti-Hitler campaign was largely conducted in Europe, especially through the OSS's foreign outposts in Bern and London. A fascinating cast of characters made the OSS run: William J. Donovan, one of the most decorated individuals in the American military who became the driving force behind the OSS's genesis; Allen Dulles, the future CIA chief who ran the Bern office, which he called "the big window onto the fascist world"; a veritable pantheon of Ivy League academics who were recruited to work for the intelligence services; and, not least, Roosevelt himself. A major contribution of the book is the story of how FDR employed Hitler's former propaganda chief, Ernst "Putzi" Hanfstengl, as a private spy. More than a record of dramatic incidents and daring personalities, this book adds significantly to our understanding of how the United States fought World War II. It demonstrates that the extent, and limitations, of secret intelligence information shaped not only the conduct of the war but also the face of the world that emerged from the shadows.