Ethnography after antiquity : foreign lands and peoples in Byzantine literature / Anthony Kaldellis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kaldellis, Anthony.

Series:

Empire and after.

Empire and After

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Byzantine literature--Themes, motives.

Byzantine literature.

Cultural awareness--Byzantine Empire.

Cultural awareness.

Ethnic attitudes in literature.

Ethnic attitudes--Byzantine Empire.

Ethnic attitudes.

Ethnology--Byzantine Empire.

Ethnology.

Foreign countries in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (288 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, c2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Although Greek and Roman authors wrote ethnographic texts describing foreign cultures, ethnography seems to disappear from Byzantine literature after the seventh century C.E.-a perplexing exception for a culture so strongly self-identified with the Roman empire. Yet the Byzantines, geographically located at the heart of the upheavals that led from the ancient to the modern world, had abundant and sophisticated knowledge of the cultures with which they struggled and bargained. Ethnography After Antiquity examines both the instances and omissions of Byzantine ethnography, exploring the political and religious motivations for writing (or not writing) about other peoples. Through the ethnographies embedded in classical histories, military manuals, Constantine VII's De administrando imperio, and religious literature, Anthony Kaldellis shows Byzantine authors using accounts of foreign cultures as vehicles to critique their own state or to demonstrate Romano-Christian superiority over Islam. He comes to the startling conclusion that the Byzantines did not view cultural differences through a purely theological prism: their Roman identity, rather than their orthodoxy, was the vital distinction from cultures they considered heretic and barbarian. Filling in the previously unexplained gap between antiquity and the resurgence of ethnography in the late Byzantine period, Ethnography After Antiquity offers new perspective on how Byzantium positioned itself with and against the dramatically shifting world.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Preface

Chapter 1. Ethnography in Late Antique Historiography

Chapter 2. Byzantine Information- Gathering Behind the Veil of Silence

Chapter 3. Explaining the Relative Decline of Ethnography in the Middle Period

Chapter 4. The Genres and Politics of Middle Byzantine Ethnography

Chapter 5. Ethnography in Palaiologan Literature

Epilogue: Looking to a New World

Abbreviations

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780812208405

0812208404

OCLC:

859162344