Byzantine News

Dumbarton Oaks has made available I .Shahid's  book on Rome and the Arabs. Click here to download The Arabs played an important role in Roman-controlled Oriens in the four centuries or so that elapsed from the Settlement of Pompey in 64 B.C. to the reign of Diocletian, A.D. 284–305. In Rome and the Arabs Irfan Shahîd explores this extensive but poorly known role and traces the phases of the Arab-Roman relationship, especially in the climactic third century, which witnessed the rise of many powerful Roman Arabs such as the Empresses of the Severan Dynasty, Emperor Philip, and the two rulers of Palmyra, Odenathus and Zenobia. Philip the Arab, the author argues, was the first Christian Roman emperor and Abgar the Great (ca. 200 A.D.) was the first Near Eastern ruler to adopt Christianity. In addition to political and military matters, the author also discusses Arab cultural contributions, pointing out the role of the Hellenized and Romanized Arabs in the urbanization of the regio...

The classical book on Byzantine warfare by John Haldon is now online. Click below to read and enjoy!

Read here a volume on Byzantium and the Modern Greek Identity : This collection of commissioned essays aims to present an overview of some of the different tendencies manifested by modern Greek attitudes to Byzantium since the late 18th-century Enlightenment.

Full access to a major resource for the study of Byzantine art: The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era, edited by Helen C. Evans, William D. Wixom :

Another free ebook on Crusades and Byzantium to download from Dumbarton Oaks edited by Angeliki Laiou: The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World is the result of scholarly reassessments of the Crusades on the 900th anniversary of the appearance of crusading armies outside Nicaea. The views expressed here complement the considerable number of other examinations that focused on the internal, Western, aspects of the movement on the 900th anniversary of the Council of Clermont.  The volume opens with an introduction to the historiography of the Crusades, followed by wide-ranging discussions covering four topics: holy war in Byzantium and Islam; the approaches and attitudes of the various peoples affected by and involved in the Crusades; the movement's effect on the economies of the eastern Mediterranean; and the influence of the Crusades on the art and architecture of the East.  The essays in this volume demonstrate that there were, on the easter...

An event which influenced the history of both Byzantium and the Western states, the crusades pose many problems to the researchers of today. Were the crusades a Holy War in Byzantium? The late G.T. Dennis tried to give an answer to this question in a Dumbarton Oaks volume. Click here to read more