Historiography and Identity IV: Writing History Across Medieval Eurasia

Description

Historical writing has shaped identities in various ways and to different extents. This volume explores this multiplicity by looking at case studies from Europe, Byzantium, the Islamic World, and China around the turn of the first millennium. The chapters in this volume address official histories and polemical critique, traditional genres and experimental forms, ancient traditions and emerging territories, empires and barbarians. The authors do not take the identities highlighted in the texts for granted, but examine the complex strategies of identification that they employ. This volume thus explores how historiographical works in diverse contexts construct and shape identities, as well as legitimate political claims and communicate 'visions of community'. Front Matter Walter Pohl. Introduction: Historiography and Identityin a Comparative Perspective Q. Edward Wang. ‘National History’ in Post-Imperial East Asia and Europe Randolph B. Ford. The Wars of Procopiusand the Jinshu of Fang Xuanling: Representations of Barbarian PoliticalFigures in Classicizing Historiography Bernhard Scheid. Mythology and Genealogyin the Canonical Sources of Japanese History Sarah Bowen Savant. Iran’s Conversion to Islam and History Writing as an Art for Forgetting Michael Cook. Iran and Islam: Two Narratives Daniel Mahoney. The Formation of South ArabianIdentity in al-Iklīl of al-Hamdānī Scott Fitzgerald Johnson. Convergence and Multiplicity in Byzantine Historiography: Literary Trends in Syriac and Greek, Ninth to Twelfth Centuries Emmanuel C. Bourbouhakis. The Byzantine Past as Text: Historiography and Political Renewal c. 900 Yannis Stouraitis. Scriptores post Theophanem: Normative Aspects of Imperial Historiography inTenth-Century Byzantium Simon MacLean. Who Were the Lotharingians? Defining Political Community after the End of the Carolingian Empire Matthias M. Tischler. Spaces of ‘Convivencia’ and Spaces of Polemics Transcultural Historiography and Religious Identity in the Intellectual Landscape of the Iberian Peninsula, Ninth to Tenth Centuries Walter Pohl. Mapping Historiography: An Essay in Comparison Back Matter