The eighth century has not been analysed as a period of economic history since the 1930s, and is ripe for a comprehensive reassessment. The twelve papers in this book range over the whole of Europe and the Mediterranean from Denmark to Palestine, covering Francia, Italy and Byzantium on the way. They examine regional economies and associated political structures, that is to say the whole network of production, exchange, and social relations in each area. They offer both authoritative overviews of current work and new and original work. As a whole, they show how the eighth century was the first century when the post-Roman world can clearly be seen to have emerged, in the regional economies of each part of Europe.
This book is a major reassessment of the archaeological and documentary evidence for the economic history of eighth-century Europe and the Mediterranean.
SILK ROAD takes you into the golden age of China's multi-cultural Tang dynasty. Aided by ghosts, goddesses, dragons, and her own determination, the heroine becomes a courtesan, a musician, a runaway, a wandering swordswoman, a poet, and more. Larsen has used a dazzling diversity of prose styles to adroitly demonstrate how history is transmuted through the centuries into something not quite true, yet not entirely false...an illuminating and absorbing story. Publishers Weekly A joyful blend of scholarship and fancy and an appreciation of the simple, strong, lyrical line of Chinese verse. But this is mainly magical fun. Kirkus Reviews
The Botany of Empire in the Long Eighteenth Century brings together international scholars to examine: the figure of the botanical explorer; links between imperial ambition and the impulse to survey, map, and collect specimens in "new" territories; and relationships among botanical knowledge, self-representation, and material culture.
This book addresses a critical era in the history of the city of Rome, the eighth century CE. This was the moment when the bishops of Rome assumed political and administrative responsibility for the city's infrastructure and the physical welfare of its inhabitants, in the process creating the papal state that still survives today. John Osborne approaches this using the primary lens of 'material culture' (buildings and their decorations, both surviving and known from documents and/or archaeology), while at the same time incorporating extensive information drawn from written sources. Whereas written texts are comparatively few in number, recent decades have witnessed an explosion in new archaeological discoveries and excavations, and these provide a much fuller picture of cultural life in the city. This methodological approach of using buildings and objects as historical documents is embodied in the phrase 'history in art'.
An extraordinary and beautifully illustrated exploration of the medieval world through twelve manuscripts, from one of the world's leading experts. Winner of The Wolfson History Prize and The Duff Cooper Prize. A San Francisco Chronicle Holiday Book Gift Guide Pick! Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts is a captivating examination of twelve illuminated manuscripts from the medieval period. Noted authority Christopher de Hamel invites the reader into intimate conversations with these texts to explore what they tell us about nearly a thousand years of medieval history - and about the modern world, too. In so doing, de Hamel introduces us to kings, queens, saints, scribes, artists, librarians, thieves, dealers, and collectors. He traces the elaborate journeys that these exceptionally precious artifacts have made through time and shows us how they have been copied, how they have been embroiled in politics, how they have been regarded as objects of supreme beauty and as symbols of national identity, and who has owned them or lusted after them (and how we can tell). From the earliest book in medieval England to the incomparable Book of Kells to the oldest manuscript of the Canterbury Tales, these encounters tell a narrative of intellectual culture and art over the course of a millennium. Two of the manuscripts visited are now in libraries of North America, the Morgan Library in New York and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Part travel book, part detective story, part conversation with the reader, Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts allows us to experience some of the greatest works of art in our culture to give us a different perspective on history and on how we come by knowledge.
In this study, Tappy completes the study of the Iron Age strata at Samaria that began with the first volume of this work. Tappy's goal is to provide a thorough-going analysis of prior archaeologists' work at this important north Israelite site
