1shikari
It's out! The book that I at least have been waiting for for ten-plus years, James Howard-Johnston's magnum opus, The Last Great War of Antiquity on the war between the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire and the Sasanians that followed the overthrow and murder of the Emperor Maurice in AD 602, leading to Persian conquest of the empire from Syria to Egypt, and culminating with the overthrow and murder of the Shahanshah Khusrow Parviz himself in AD 628. Four years later the Muslim futūḥ began, irrevocably changing the world from the ancient Roman/Persian rivalry to a new power dynamic – hence the last war of the title.
Howard-Johnson did a book on the sources of the war back in 2010, Witnesses to a World Crisis, but I have to admit I've not followed the scholarship recently. Can anyone update me?
Howard-Johnson did a book on the sources of the war back in 2010, Witnesses to a World Crisis, but I have to admit I've not followed the scholarship recently. Can anyone update me?
2Birlinn
What did you think of it Shikari? I only recently finished it myself, and it really reinforced for me not only how few reliable sources we have, but also how difficult it can be to wring out even the barest of outlines for huge stretches of the War. It makes one greatly wish that Heraclius had a Procopius of his own fill in some of missing details!
Personally I would have liked Howard-Johnson to have spent more time examining the aftermath of the War, especially with so many threads seemingly continuing into the early Arab-Byzantine conflict. Two-and-a-half decades of war, loss of revenue, disruption of trade, and all the other ills that occupation & conquest brings - that is going to have a significant effect on the state, and the work could have benefitted from a bit more emphasis on those aspects.
I'm not a specialist in this particular field, merely a bit of a Byzantophile, but this war has always been a bit of a historical blind spot for me, so I'm glad to finally have that somewhat rectified.
Personally I would have liked Howard-Johnson to have spent more time examining the aftermath of the War, especially with so many threads seemingly continuing into the early Arab-Byzantine conflict. Two-and-a-half decades of war, loss of revenue, disruption of trade, and all the other ills that occupation & conquest brings - that is going to have a significant effect on the state, and the work could have benefitted from a bit more emphasis on those aspects.
I'm not a specialist in this particular field, merely a bit of a Byzantophile, but this war has always been a bit of a historical blind spot for me, so I'm glad to finally have that somewhat rectified.
