Motions of Late Antiquity

Motions of Late Antiquity Synopsis

he essays of this volume demonstrate that Late Antiquity is not just a period in which the late Roman world grew into the three successor cultures of the Roman Empire - the Latin West, Byzantium, and the Islamic world - but also a set of hermeneutical tools for exploring historical transformation. A late antique view considers both the profound plurality of past societies and the surprising instances when a culture coheres out of those differences. The studies here follow those motions of fracture and alignment, and they show how working along the lines of a single but deeply textured vision of Late Antiquity makes it possible to integrate different fields such as Roman, Byzantine, and Islamic studies, and to start a new conversation between ancient and medieval history.