Bibliography

This is not meant to be an exhaustive list. Instead, it is meant to give a springboard for anyone wishing to delve into Late Antique and Byzantine history. Some areas may be more developed than others because of my current research interests. Please feel free to make any recommendations in the comments section!

Stepping into the Topic

  • Cameron, A, The Byzantines (Oxford, 2010).
  • Cameron, A, Byzantine Christianity: A Very Brief History (London, 2017).
  • Herrin, J, Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire (London, 2007).
  • Mango, C, The Oxford History of Byzantium (Oxford, 2002).
  • Norwich, J. J. A Short History of Byzantium (London, 2013).
  • Runciman, S, Byzantine Civilization (London, 1966).
  • Sarris, P, Byzantium: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2015).
  • Stathakopoulos, D, A Short History of the Byzantine Empire (London, 2020).
  • Treadgold, W, A Concise History of Byzantium (London, 2020).

Students

Overviews

  • Gregory, T, A History of Byzantium, 2nd Edition (Chichester, 2010).
  • Harris, J, Introduction to Byzantium, 602-1453 (Abingdon, 2020).
  • Jeffreys, E, Haldon, J, and Cormack, R (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies (Oxford, 2008).
  • Johnson, S (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity (Oxford, 2015).
  • Jones, A. H. M, The Later Roman Empire 284-602, 2 vols (Oxford, 1990).
  • Mitchell, S, A History of the Later Roman Empire, AD 284-641 (Chichester, 2015).
  • Shepard, J (ed), The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire, 500-1492 (Cambridge, 2008).
  • Treadgold, W, A History of the Byzantine State and Society (Stanford, 1997).
  • Wickaham, C, The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000 (London, 2010).
  • Whittow, M, The Making of Orthodox Byzantium, 600-1025 (Basingstoke, 1996).

Identity

  • Kaldellis, A, Hellenism in Byzantium: The Transformation of Greek Identity and the Reception of the Classical Tradition (Cambridge, 2011).
  • Kaldellis, A, Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium (Harvard, 2019).
  • Kaldellis, A, The Byzantine Republic: People and Power in New Rome (Harvard, 2015).
  • Mango, C, Byzantium: The Empire of the New Rome (London, 1980).

Historiography

  • Cameron, A, Byzantine Matters (Princeton, 2014).
  • Howard-Johnston, J, Witnesses to a World Crisis: Historians and Histories of the Middle East in the Seventh Century (Oxford, 2010).
  • Kaldellis, A, Byzantium Unbound (Leeds, 2019).
  • Neville, L, Guide to Byzantine Historical Writing (Cambridge, 2018).  
  • Treadgold, W, The Early Byzantine Historians (Basingstoke, 2007).
  • Treadgold, W, The Middle Byzantine Historians (Basingstoke, 2013).

Specific Periods

  • Angold, M, The Byzantine Empire, 1025-1204: A Political History (London, 1997).
  • Brubaker, L and Haldon, J, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era, c. 680-850: A History (Cambridge, 2011).
  • Cameron, A, Ward-Perkins, B, and Whitby, M (eds), The Cambridge Ancient History Volume 14 Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, AD 425-600 (Cambridge, 2001).
  • Haldon, J, Byzantium in the Seventh Century: The Transformation of a Culture (Cambridge, 1997).
  • Haldon, J, The Empire that Would Not Die: The Paradox of Eastern Roman Survival, 640-740 (Harvard, 2016).
  • Kaldellis, A, Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood: The Rise and Fall of Byzantium, 955 A.D. To the First Crusade (Oxford, 2017).
  • Maas, M (ed), The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian (Cambridge, 2005).
  • Nicol, D. M, The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261-1453 (Cambridge, 1993).
  • Sarris, P, Empires of Faith: The Fall of Rome to the Rise of Islam, 500-700 (Oxford, 2011).
  • Treadgold, W, The Byzantine Revival, 780-842 (Stanford, 1988).

Political and Military History

  • Angelov, D, Imperial Ideology and Political Thought in Byzantium, 1204-1330 (Cambridge, 2006).
  • Birkenmeier, J. W, The Development of the Komnenian Army: 1081-1180 (Leiden, 2002).
  • Dagron, G, Emperor and Priest: The Imperial Office in Byzantium (Cambridge, 2007).
  • Elton, H, The Roman Empire in Late Antiquity: A Political and Military History (Cambridge, 2018).  
  • Haldon, J, Warfare, State and Society in the Byzantine World, 565-1204 (Abingdon, 1999).
  • Haldon, J, The Byzantine Wars (Stroud, 2011).
  • Heather, P, Rome Resurgent: War and Empire in the Age of Justinian (Oxford, 2018).
  • Kazhdan, A.P. & Epstein, A.W, Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Berkeley, 1985).
  • Kaegi, W. E, Byzantine Military unrest, 471-843: An Interpretation (Amsterdam, 1981).
  • Krallis, D, Michael Attaleiates and the Politics of Imperial Decline in Eleventh Century Byzantium (Arizona, 2012).
  • Lee, A. D, Warfare in Late Antiquity: A Social History (Oxford, 2007).
  • Luttwak, N, The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire (Harvard, 2009).
  • Magdalino, P, The Empire of Manuel I Komnenos 1143-1180 (Cambridge, 1993).
  • Omissi, A, Emperors and Usurpers in the Later Roman Empire: Civil War, panegyric, and the Construction of Legitimacy (Oxford, 2018).
  • Pryor, J and Jeffreys, E, The Age of the Dromon: The Byzantine Navy ca 500-1204 (Leiden, 2011).
  • Theotokis, G, Byzantine Military Tactics in Syria and Mesopotamia in the 10th Century: A Comparative Study (Edinburgh, 2018).
  • Theotokis, G and Meško (eds), War in Eleventh Century Byzantium (London, 2020).
  • Treadgold, W, Byzantium and its Army, 284-1081 (Stanford, 1995).
  • Whately, C, Battles and Generals: Combat, Culture, and Didacticism in Procopius’ Wars (Leiden, 2015).
  • Whitby, M, The Emperor Maurice and his Historian: Theophylact Simocatta on Persian and Balkan Warfare (Oxford, 1988).

Gender and Women

  • Garland, L, Byzantine Empresses: Women and Power in Byzantium AD 527-1204 (Abingdon, 1999).
  • Herrin, J, Unrivalled Influence: Women and Empire in Byzantium (Princeton, 2013).
  • James, L (ed), Women, Men and Eunuchs: Gender in Byzantium (Abingdon, 1997).
  • Neville, L, Byzantine Gender (Leeds, 2019).
  • Stewart, M. E, The Soldier’s Life: Martial Virtues and Manly Romanitas in the Early Byzantine Empire (Leeds, 2016).
  • Tougher, S, The Eunuch in Byzantine History and Society (Abingdon, 2008).

Art and Culture

  • Cormack, R, Byzantine Art (Oxford, 2018).
  • Haldon, J (ed), A Social History of Byzantium (Chichester, 2009).
  • Krautheimer, R, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture (London, 1986).
  • Rice, T. T, Everyday Life in Byzantium (1987).
  • Rodley, L, Byzantine Art and Architecture: An Introduction (Cambridge, 1994).

Neighbours

  • Curta, F, Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 500-1250 (Cambridge, 2006).
  • Donner, F. M, The Early Islamic Conquests (Princeton, 1981).
  • Frankopan, P, The First Crusade: The Call from the East (Harvard, 2012).
  • Halsall, G, Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376-568 (Cambridge, 2007).
  • Harris, J, Byzantium and the Crusades (London and New York, 2014).
  • Hupchick, D. P, The Bulgarian-Byzantine Wars for Early Medieval Balkan Hegemony: Silver-Lined Skulls and Blinded Armies (London, 2017).
  • Kaegi, W. E, Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests (Cambridge, 1997).
  • Kennedy, H, The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh Century (Abingdon, 2016).
  • Obolensky, D, The Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe, 500-1453 (London, 1971).
  • Pohl, W, The Avars: A Steppe Empire in Central Europe, 567-822 (Cornell, 2018).
  • Raffensperger, C, The Kingdom of Rus’ (Leeds, 2017).

The Sasanians

  • Bonner, M, The Last Empire of Iran (New Jersey, 2020).
  • Canepa, M, The Two Eyes of the Earth: Art and Ritual of Kingship Between Rome and Sasanian Iran (Berkeley, 2009).
  • Daryaee, T, Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire (London and New York, 2009).
  • Daryaee, T and Rezakhani, K, From Oxus to Euphrates: The World of Late Antique Iran (2016).
  • Dignas, B and Winter, E, Rome and Persia in Late Antiquity: Neighbours and Rivals (Cambridge, 2007).  
  • Farrokh, K, Armies of Ancient Persia: The Sassanians (Barnsley, 2017).
  • Fisher, G, Between Empires: Arabs, Romans, and Sasanians in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 2011).  
  • Howard-Johnston, J, East Rome, Sasanian Persia and the End of Antiquity: Historiographical and Historical Studies (Aldershot, 2006).
  • Payne, R, A State of Mixture: Christians, Zoroastrians, and Iranian Political Culture in Late Antiquity (California, 2015).
  • Pourshariati, P, Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire: The Sasanian-Parthian Confederacy and the Arab Conquest of Iran (London and New York, 2017).
  • Rezakhani, K, Reorienting the Sasanians: East Iran in Late Antiquity (Edinburgh, 2017).  
  • Sauer, E (ed), Sasanian Persia: Between Rome and the Steppes of Eurasia (Edinburgh, 2017).
  • Shayegan, M. R, Arsacids and Sasanians: Political Ideology in Post-Hellenic and Late Antique Persia (Cambridge, 2011).
  • Wiesehofer, J, Ancient Persia (London and New York, 2006).

For Roman-Persian Wars – Primary Sources:

  • Dodgeon, M. H and Lieu, S. N. C (eds), The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars AD 226-363: A Documentary History (London, 1991).
  • Greatrex, G and Lieu, S. N. C (eds), The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars: Part II AD 363-630 (Abingdon, 2002).
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