ENGLISH

Empire to Commonwealth: Consequences of Monotheism in Late Antiquity

By Garth Fowden

Book information

Publisher
Princeton University Press
Year
2020
ISBN
9781400844241
DOI
10.1515/9781400844241
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
21 MB (22237362 bytes)
Pages
232\226
Library
degruyter.com
Time added
2023-08-24 00:00:09

Description

In this bold approach to late antiquity, Garth Fowden shows how, from the second-century peak of Rome's prosperity to the ninth-century onset of the Islamic Empire's decline, powerful beliefs in One God were used to justify and strengthen "world empires." But tensions between orthodoxy and heresy that were inherent in monotheism broke the unitary empires of Byzantium and Baghdad into the looser, more pluralistic commonwealths of Eastern Christendom and Islam. With rare breadth of vision, Fowden traces this transition from empire to commonwealth, and in the process exposes the sources of major cultural contours that still play a determining role in Europe and southwest Asia.

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