Recording Village Life
Recording Village Life

Author: Jennifer Cromwell

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2017-12-05

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 047213048X

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An engrossing study of literacy and the scribal economy at the village level

The Great Arab Conquests
The Great Arab Conquests

Author: Hugh Kennedy

Publisher: Da Capo Press

Published: 2007-12-10

Total Pages: 466

ISBN-13: 0306817284

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Today's Arab world was created at breathtaking speed. In just over one hundred years following the death of Mohammed in 632, Arabs had subjugated a territory with an east-west expanse greater than the Roman Empire, and they did it in about one-half the time. By the mid-eighth century, Arab armies had conquered the thousand-year-old Persian Empire, reduced the Byzantine Empire to little more than a city-state based around Constantinople, and destroyed the Visigoth kingdom of Spain. The cultural and linguistic effects of this early Islamic expansion reverberate today. This is the first popular English-language account in many years of this astonishing remaking of the political and religious map of the world. Hugh Kennedy's sweeping narrative reveals how the Arab armies conquered almost everything in their path, and brings to light the unique characteristics of Islamic rule. One of the few academic historians with a genuine talent for story telling, Kennedy offers a compelling mix of larger-than-life characters, fierce battles, and the great clash of civilizations and religions.

North Africa Under Byzantium and Early Islam
North Africa Under Byzantium and Early Islam

Author: Susan T. Stevens

Publisher: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library & Collection

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780884024088

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Essays in North Africa under Byzantium and Early Islam include the legacy of Vandal rule in Africa, art and architectural history, archaeology, economics, theology, Berbers, and the Islamic conquest. They examine the ways in which the imperial legacy was re-interpreted, re-imagined, and put to new uses in Byzantine and early Islamic Africa.

Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests
Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests

Author: Walter E. Kaegi

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1995-03-30

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 9780521484558

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This is a study of how and why the Byzantine Empire lost many of its most valuable provinces to Islamic (Arab) conquerors in the seventh century, provinces which included Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Armenia. It investigates conditions on the eve of those conquests, mistakes in Byzantine policy toward the Arabs, the course of the military campaigns, and the problem of local official and civilian collaboration with the Muslims. It also seeks to explain how, after terrible losses, the Byzantine government achieved some intellectual rationalisation of its disasters and began the complex process of transforming and adapting its fiscal and military institutions and political controls in order to prevent further disintegration.