{"title":"Books by John Haldon","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780674088771","title":"The Empire That Would Not Die – The Paradox of Eastern Roman Survival, 640–740","description":"The eastern Roman Empire was the largest state in western Eurasia in the sixth century. Only a century later, it was a fraction of its former size. Surrounded by enemies, ravaged by warfare and disease, the empire seemed destined to collapse. Yet it did not die. In this holistic analysis, John Haldon elucidates the factors that allowed the eastern Roman Empire to survive against all odds into the eighth century.   By 700 CE the empire had lost three-quarters of its territory to the Islamic caliphate. But the rugged geography of its remaining territories in Anatolia and the Aegean was strategically advantageous, preventing enemies from permanently occupying imperial towns and cities while leaving them vulnerable to Roman counterattacks. The more the empire shrank, the more it became centered around the capital of Constantinople, whose ability to withstand siege after siege proved decisive. Changes in climate also played a role, permitting shifts in agricultural production that benefitted the imperial economy.   At the same time, the crisis confronting the empire forced the imperial court, the provincial ruling classes, and the church closer together. State and church together embodied a sacralized empire that held the emperor, not the patriarch, as Christendom’s symbolic head. Despite its territorial losses, the empire suffered no serious political rupture. What remained became the heartland of a medieval Christian Roman state, with a powerful political theology that predicted the emperor would eventually prevail against God’s enemies and establish Orthodox Christianity’s world dominion.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56293681103221,"sku":"9780674088771","price":43.95,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780674088771_71f40b23-144e-4086-9b95-d6cfda76a71f.jpg?v=1786015105"},{"product_id":"9780750999656","title":"Byzantium","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eOriginally the eastern half of the mighty Roman Empire, Byzantium grew to be one of the longest-surviving empires in world history, spanning nine centuries and three continents.\u003c\/b\u003e It was a land of contrasts – from the glittering centre at Constantinople, to the rural majority, to the heartland of the Orthodox Church – and one surrounded by enemies: Persians, Arabs and Ottoman Turks to the east, Slavs and Bulgars to the north, Saracens and Normans to the west.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWritten by one of the world’s leading experts on Byzantine history, \u003ci\u003eByzantium: A History\u003c\/i\u003e tells the chequered story of a historical enigma, from its birth out of the ashes of Rome in the third century to its era-defining fall at the hands of the Ottoman Turks in 1453.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56294648807797,"sku":"9780750999656","price":17.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780750999656_cbacbe82-2630-4824-9fe3-cff3f1c32b63.jpg?v=1786014826"},{"product_id":"9781107626294","title":"Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era, c. 680-850","description":"Iconoclasm, the debate about the legitimacy of religious art that began in Byzantium around 720 and continued for nearly one hundred and twenty years, has long held a firm grip on the historical imagination. This is the first book in English for over fifty years to survey this most elusive and fascinating period in medieval history. It is also the first book in any language to combine the expertise of two authors who are specialists in the written, archaeological and visual evidence from this period, a combination of particular importance to the iconoclasm debate. The authors have worked together to provide a comprehensive overview of the visual, written and other materials that together help clarify the complex issues of iconoclasm in Byzantium. In doing so they challenge many traditional assumptions about iconoclasm and set the period firmly in its broader political, cultural and social-economic context.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56296387707253,"sku":"9781107626294","price":42.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781107626294_262f38a1-a248-420a-9d2c-271e557921cb.jpg?v=1786018242"},{"product_id":"9780752445656","title":"The Byzantine Wars","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBy the middle of the sixth century the Byzantine emperor ruled a mighty empire that straddled Europe, Asia and North Africa.\u003c\/strong\u003e Within 100 years, this powerful empire had been cut in half. Two centuries later the Byzantine empire was once again a power to be reckoned with, and soon recovered its position as the paramount East Mediterranean and Balkan power, whose fabulous wealth attracted Viking mercenaries and central Asian nomad warriors to its armies, whose very appearance on the field of battle was sometimes enough to bring enemies to terms. No book has ever attempted a survey of Byzantine wars, and few accounts of Byzantine battles have ever been translated into a modern language. This book will provide essential support for those interested in Byzantine history in general as well as a useful corrective to the more usual highly romanticised views of Byzantine civilisation.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56297347088757,"sku":"9780752445656","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780752445656_c4283383-2e95-4e54-86ab-1575d370b369.jpg?v=1786016271"},{"product_id":"9781803277998","title":"Modelling the Logistics of Mantzikert","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn AD 1071, the Byzantine Emperor, Romanos IV Diogenes, set out from Constantinople for the eastern borders of his Empire with an army described as “more numerous than the sands of the sea”. His military campaign culminated in defeat by the Seljuk Sultan Alp Arslan at the Battle of Mantzikert. This defeat was to have profound consequences for both Byzantine and Turkish history and is still commemorated in the modern state of Turkey. Yet the historical sources for this campaign contain significant gaps and we know more about the political intrigues surrounding the emperor than we do about how the army moved and fed itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe ‘Medieval Warfare on the Grid’ project (2007-2011) was funded by an AHRC-EPSRC-Jisc e-Science grant and set out to use computer simulation to shed new light on the Mantzikert campaign. In this book we present the results of the project and demonstrate that computer simulation has an important role to play in the analysis of pre-modern military logistics. It can give new context to historical sources, present new options for the interpretation of past events and enable questions of greater complexity to be asked of historical military campaigns. It can also highlight the similarities that exist across time and space when armies need to be mobilised, moved and fed.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56306830999925,"sku":"9781803277998","price":35.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781803277998_8f742bda-708e-4ecd-a393-62aa93a815ed.jpg?v=1786026961"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-john-haldon.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}