by Colin Wells
Syriac Perspectives on Late Antiquity. London: Variorum, 1984.
∗Brown, Peter. Augustine of Hippo. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969. Indispensable.
The Cult of the Saints. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.
———. The Making of Late Antiquity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993 (1978).
———. Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992.
———. The Rise of Western Christendom. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996. Insightful exploration of early Christianity by the master of Late Antiquity. Despite the title, offers much on Christianity's early context in the eastern Mediterranean world.
———. Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. Contains an excellent article on the Iconoclast controversy, “A Dark Age Crisis: Aspects of the Iconoclast Controversy,” and much else of value besides.
———. The World of Late Antiquity AD 150-750. New York: Norton, 1989 (1971). The book that opened up Late Antiquity as a hot academic field.
∗Browning, Robert, ed. The Greek World: Classical, Byzantine, and Modern. London: Thames and Hudson, 1985. Articles by leading scholars in a handsome coffee-table book.
———. The Byzantine Empire. Revised edition. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1992. Excellent introduction to Byzantine history and civilization by a respected scholar.
Byzantium and Bulgaria. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975.
Church, State, and Learning in Twelfth Century Byzantium. London: Dr. Williams's Trust, 1980.
Brooker, Gene. Renaissance Florence. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1969.
∗Bullock, Alan. The Humanist Tradition in the West. New York: Norton, 1985.
Burckhardt, Jacob. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. New York: Phaidon, 1950.
Burke, Peter. The European Renaissance: Centres and Peripheries. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.
Bury, J. B. A History of the Later Roman Empire. 2 vols. New York: Dover, 1958 (1923). Classic, if dated.
∗Cameron, Averil. Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire: The Development of Christian Discourse. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
“Early Christian Territory After Foucault.” Journal of Roman Studies76 (1986): 266-71.
———. “Images of Authority: Elites and Icons in Late Sixth-Century Byzantium.” Past and Present 84 (1979): 3-35.
———. The Later Roman Empire, AD 284–430. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. Excellent narrative history of this transitional period for the vigorous general reader.
———. The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity, AD 395-600. London and New York: Routledge, 1993. Read with her Later Roman Empire for superb coverage of the Mediterranean world in the centuries before Islam.
———. “New Themes and Styles in Greek Literature: Seventh-Eighth Centuries.” In The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East, Vol. I: Problems in the Literary Source Material, edited by Averil Cameron and Lawrence I. Conrad. Princeton: Darwin, 1992.
———. Procopius and the Sixth Century. London and New York: Routledge, 1996 (1985). Essential reading on Procopius and his times by a leading scholar of early Byzantium.
“The Theotokos in Sixth-Century Constantinople: A City Finds Its Symbol.” Journal of Theological Studies, new series 29 (1978): 79-108.
“The Virgin's Robe: An Episode in the History of Early Seventh-Century Constantinople.” Byzantion 49 (1979): 42-56.
Cammelli, Giuseppe. I Dotti Byzantini e le Origini Dell’Umanismo I: Manuele Crisolora. Florence: Vallecchi Editore, 1941.
Cardwell, Donald. The Norton History of Technology. New York: Norton, 1994.
∗Cavallo, Guglielmo, ed. The Byzantines. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Excellent thematic introduction to Byzantine society with articles by leading scholars.
Crone, Patricia. Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987.
Dawson, Christopher. Religion and the Rise of Western Culture. Doubleday, 1991 (1950).
Demus, Otto. Byzantine Art and the West. New York: New York University Press, 1970.
∗Diehl, Charles. Byzantium: Greatness and Decline. Translated by Naomi Walford. Edited and with an introduction by Peter Charanis. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1957. Holds up well, a classic. Especially good on the Byzantine cultural legacy.
Drijvers, Jan Willem, and Alasdair MacDonald. Centres of Learning: Learning and Location in Pre-Modern Europe and the Near East. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995.
Dvornik, Francis. Byzantine Missions Among the Slavs. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1970.
The Making of Central and Eastern Europe. Second edition. Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press, 1974.
Photian and Byzantine Ecclesiastical Studies. London: Variorum, 1974. Collected studies; valuable for Photius.
Edgerton, S. The Renaissance Discovery of Linear Perspective. New York, 1975.
Fakhry, Majid. A History of Islamic Philosophy. Second edition. New York: Longman, 1983.
A Short Introduction to Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Mysticism. Oxford: Oneworld, 1997.
Fine, John V. A., Jr. The Early Medieval Balkans. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1983.
∗Fowden, Garth. Empire to Commonwealth: Consequences of Monotheism in Late Antiquity. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993.
Flogaus, Reinhard. “Palamas and Barlaam Revisited: A Reassessment of East and West in the Hesychast Controversy of 14th Century Byzantium.” In St Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 42, 1 (1998): 1-32.
Franklin, Simon. “Greek in Kievan Rus.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 46 (1992): 69-87.
∗Franklin, Simon, and Jonathan Shepard. The Emergence of Rus 750-1200. London: Longman, 1996. Very good survey of recent archeological evidence on early Russia.
Frend, W. H. C. “Nomads and Christianity in the Middle Ages.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 26 (1975): 209-21.
Gabrieli, Giuseppe.“Hunayn Ibn Ishaq.”Isis 6 (1924): 282-92.
∗ Garin, Eugenio. Portraits from the Quattrocento. Translated by V. A. Velen and E. Velen. New York: Harper and Row, 1972.
∗Geanakoplos, Deno John. Constantinople and the West: Essays on the Late Byzantine (Paleologan) and Italian Renaissances and the Byzantine and Roman Churches. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989.
Greek Scholars in Venice: Studies in the Dissemination of Greek
Learning from Byzantium to Western Europe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962.
Interaction of the “Sibling” Byzantine and Western Cultures in the Middle Ages and the Italian Renaissance (330-1600). New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976.
Gibb, H. A. R. “Ar ab-Byzantine Relations under the Umayyad Caliphate.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 12 (1958): 223-33.
Gibson, Margaret, ed. Boethius: His Life, Thought and Influence. Oxford: Blackwell, 1981.
Gill, Joseph. The Council of Florence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961.
Goffart, Walter. The Narrators of Barbarian History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988.
Goodman, Lenn E. Islamic Humanism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Grabar, Oleg. “The Umayyad Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.” Ars Orientalis 3 (1959).
Gurevich, Aaron. “Why Am I Not a Byzantinist?” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 46 (1992): 89-96.
∗Gutas, Dimitri. Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early Abbasid Society (2nd-4th/8th-10th Centuries). New York and London: Routledge, 1998. Excellent if occasionally polemical revisionist account of the translation movement.
———. “Islam and Science: A False Statement of the Problem.” Islam and Science 1,2 (2003): 215-20.
“The Study of Arabic Philosophy in the Twentieth Century: An Essay on the Historiography of Arabic Philosophy.” British Journal of
Middle Eastern Studies 29,1 (2002): 5-25.
Hale, J. R., ed. The Thames and Hudson Encyclopedia of the Italian Renaissance. London: Thames and Hudson, 1981.
∗Halliday, Fred. Islam and the Myth of Confrontation: Religion and
Politics in the Middle East. London: I. B. Tauris, 1995. Absolutely essential reading for anyone hoping to understand Islam, its place in the world, and Western attitudes to it.
Two Hours That Shook the World: September 11, 2001: Causes and Consequences. London: Saki, 2002.
Hankins, James. “Introduction.” In Leonardo Bruni: History of the Florentine People. Edited and translated by James Hankins for the I Tatti Renaissance Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001.
Haskins, Charles Homer. The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1927.
Herrin, Judith. “Aspects of the Process of Hellenization in the Early Middle Ages.” Annual of the British School of Athens 68 (1973): 113-26.
———. The Formation of Christendom. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997. Insightful and well written; for the general reader with a scholarly bent.
∗ Hodgson, Marshall. The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization. 3 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974.
∗Holmes, George. The Florentine Enlightenment 1400-50. New York: Pegasus, 1969. Credits Chrysoloras with inspiring the secular outlook in the early Florentine humanists.
Hosking, Geoffrey. Russia and the Russians. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001.
Hourani, Albert. A History of the Arab Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991.
Hussey, J. M. Ascetics and Humanists in Eleventh Century Byzantium. London: Dr. Williams's Trust, 1960.
———. The Byzantine World. New York: Harper, 1961. Still an excellent brief introduction to Byzantine history and civilization, including the cultural legacy.
Jaeger, Werner. Early Christianity and Greek Paidea. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961.
Johnson, Mark J. “Toward a History of Theoderic's Building Program.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 42 (1988): 73-96.
Kazhdan, Alexander, and Anthony Cutler. “Continuity and Discontinuity in Byzantine History.”Byzantion 52 (1982): 429-78.
Kaegi, Walter E. Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Kennedy, Hugh. The Early Abbasid Caliphate. London: Croom Helm, 1981.
Kianka, Frances. “The Apology of Demetrius Cydones: A Fourteenth-Century Autobiographical Source.” Byzantine Studies/Études Byzantines 6, 1-2 (1979): 56-71.
“Byzantine-Papal Diplomacy: The Role of Demetrius Cydones.” International History Review 7 (1985): 175-200.
“Demetrius Cydones and Thomas Aquinas.” Byzantion 52 (1982): 264-86.
“Demetrius Kydones and Italy.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 49 (1995): 99-110.
Kraemer, Joel. Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam: The Cultural Revival During the Buyid Age. Second revised edition. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992.
Kristeller, Paul Oskar. Renaissance Concepts of Man and Other Essays. New York: Harper, 1972.
Renaissance Thought: The Classic, Scholastic, and Humanist Strains. New York: Harper, 1961.
Renaissance Thought and the Arts. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990.
———. “The School of Salerno.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 17 (1945): 138-94.
Laiou, Angeliki. “Italy and the Italians in the Political Geography of the Byzantines (Fourteenth Century).” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 49 (1995): 73-98.
Laiou, Angeliki E., and Henry Maguire, eds. Byzantium: A World Civilization. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1992.
Lemerle, Paul. Le Premier Humanism Byzantin. Paris: Presses Univer-sitaires de France, 1971.
Lewis, Bernard. Islam and the West. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.
———. What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East. New York: Harper, 2002.
Leyser, Karl. “The Tenth Century in Byzantine-Western Relationships.” In Relations Between East and West in the Middle Ages, Derek Baker, ed. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 1973.
Loenertz, Raymond. “Demetrius Cydones, Citoyen de Venise.” Echos d’Orient 37 (1938): 125-26.
McCormick, Michael. Eternal Victory: Triumphal Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium, and the Early Medieval West. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990 (1986).
McManners, John, ed. The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.
MacMullen, Ramsay. Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.
Christianizing the Roman Empire (A.D. 100-400). New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984.
Maguire, Henry. Art and Eloquence in Byzantium. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981.
Makdisi, George. Religion, Law and Learning in Classical Islam. London: Variorum, 1991.
The Rise of Humanism in Classical Islam and the Christian West. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990.
Mandalari, Giannantonio. Fra Barlaamo Calabrese: Maestro del Petrarca. Rome: Carlo Verdesi, 1888.
∗Mango, Cyril. Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome. New York: Scribners. The best topical treatment of Byzantine civilization, if occasionally a bit hard on the Byzantines.
———. Byzantium and its Image: History and Culture of the Byzantine Empire and its Heritage. London: Variorum, 1984. Collected articles by one of the most influential of Byzantinists.
∗Mango, Cyril, ed. The Oxford History of Byzantium. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. If you get one book on Byzantine history, this should probably be it—snappy, up-to-date articles by leading scholars.
Margolin, Jean-Claude. Humanism in Europe at the Time of the Renaissance. Translated by John L. Farthing. Durham, NC: Labyrinth, 1989.
Martin, Janet. Medieval Russia, 980-1584. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Martines, Lauro. The Social World of the Florentine Humanists. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963.
Mathews, Thomas F. Byzantium: From Antiquity to the Renaissance. New York: Abrams, 1998.
Mernissi, Fatema. Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World. Translated by Mary Jo Lakeland. Second edition. Cambridge, MA: Perseus, 2002.
Meyendorff, John. Byzantine Hesychasm: historical, theological, and social problems: collected studies. London: Variorum, 1974.
Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes. New York: Fordham University Press, 1974.
∗———. Byzantium and the Rise of Russia: A Study of Byzantino-Russian Relations in the Fourteenth Century. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1989.
———. “Mount Athos in the Fourteenth Century: Spiritual and Intellectual Legacy.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 42 (1988): 157-65.
“Spiritual Trends in Byzantium in the Late Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries,” in Paul A. Underwood, ed., The Kariye Djami, Volume 4: Studies in the Art of the Kariye Djami and Its Intellectual Background. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975, 95-106.
———. A Study of Gregory Palamas. Translated by George Lawrence. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1998 (1964).
“Wisdom-Sophia: Contrasting Approaches to a Complex Theme.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 41 (1987): 391-401.
Meyerhof, Max. “New Light on Hunain Ibn Ishaq and His Period.” Isis 8 (1926): 685-724.
∗Momigliano, Arnaldo. Alien Wisdom: The Limits of Hellenization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.
“Cassiodorus and the Italian Culture of His Time.” Proceedings of the British Academy 41 (1955): 207-45.
∗Nicol, Donald. The Byzantine Lady: Ten Portraits. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Byzantium: its ecclesiastical history and relations with the western world: collected studies. London: Variorum, 1972.
∗———. Byzantium and Ve
nice: A Study in Diplomatic and Cultural Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Excellent treatment of a fascinating relationship.
∗———. The End of the Byzantine Empire. London: Edward Arnold, 1979. Excellent brief treatment of late Byzantium (1261-1453) by the leading scholar of the field.
∗———. The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261-1453. Second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Longer version of above, worth every inch.
∗———. The Reluctant Emperor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Excellent biography of the enigmatic John Cantacuzenos.
∗Obolensky, Dimitri. The Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe, 500-1453. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1974 (1971). The seminal account of Byzantine cultural influences on the Slavic world.
———. The Byzantine Inheritance of Eastern Europe. London: Variorum, 1982. More collected studies.
∗———. Byzantium and the Slavs: collected studies. London: Variorum, 1971.
∗———. Six Byzantine Portraits. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. Biographical sketches of many of the individuals discussed in this book, including Clement, Vladimir Monomakh, Sava, Cyprian, and Maxim the Greek.
———. “Sts. Cyril and Methodius, Apostles to the Slavs.” St Vladimir's Seminar Quarterly 7 (1963): 1-11. Reprinted with original pagination (Study VIII) in Dimitri Obolensky, Byzantium and the Slavs: collected studies. London: Variorum, 1971.
O’Donnell, James J. Cassiodorus. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979.
O’Leary, De Lacy. How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs. London: Routledge, 1949.
Ostrogorsky, George. A History of the Byzantine State. Third edition. Translated by J. Hussey. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968.
Phillips, Jonathan. The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople. New York: Viking, 2004.
Pipes, Daniel. Russia Under the Old Regime. Second edition. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1995.
Pirenne, Henri. Medieval Cities: Their Origins and the Revival of Trade. Translated by Frank D. Halsey. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969 (1925).
Reynolds, L. D., and N. G. Wilson. Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature. Third edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.