J Haldon
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 32444 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | J Haldon |
| NOMBRES | J |
| APELLIDO | Haldon |
| FIRMA | HALDON J |
| AFILIACIONES | Princeton University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1210-0829 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 65 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 104 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 65 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1975 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 6 |
The Archaeology of Climate Change
The archaeology of climate change and environmental archaeology—each of which, in many respects, embraces the other—reflect our own times as much as they reflect both scientific advances and intellectual curiosity [...]
Early childhood educators’ perceptions of science education
Limited research exists about early childhood educators’ perceptions of science education and what factors influence them. This study examined relationships between educators’ attitudes and beliefs towards science education, contextual factors (i.e. school setting and country), and professional development in the U.S. and Spain. The Preschool Teachers’ Attitudes and Beliefs Towards Science Teaching Survey (P-TABS) was used to gather perspectives …
Coincidence and Complexity
The eastern half of the Roman Empire between the end of the 5th c. and the end of the 11th c. CE (customarily referred to as the Byzantine Empire) experienced several significant fluctuations in its political and economic fortunes. Climate change, disease, hostile invasions, internal strife, and subtle longer-term shifts in social and economic structures, as well as cultural ideological identities, have all been invoked to explain this pattern, y…
The First Plague Pandemic in the Byzantine Empire – Toward a New Dynamic Consensus
A Sixth-Century CE Drought in Arabia New Palaeoclimate Data and Some Historical Implications
Establishing plausible causal associations between the impact of climate and/or environment and past human societies presents many challenges, as the case of the decline of the S. Arabian kingdom of Himyar in the sixth century CE indicates. Evidence from a new high-resolution stalagmite record for the last 2,600 years shows that a period of drought in the early sixth century, hardly mentioned in the sources, was of unusual duration and severity. …
The Emergence of Interdisciplinary Environmental History
With the efflorescence of palaeoscientific approaches to the past, historians have been confronted with a wealth of new evidence on both human and natural phenomena, from human disease and migration to landscape change and climate. These new data require a rewriting of our narratives of the past, questioning what constitutes an authoritative historical source and who is entitled to recount history to contemporary societies. Humanities-based histo…
Past Answers to Present Concerns. The Relevance of the Premodern Past for 21st Century Policy Planners
How is history relevant to the present, or indeed the future? Governments around the world have used history to inform planning and decision‐making in various fields for years, but more recently it has taken on a renewed importance as governments grapple with increasingly complex challenges arising from the impacts of climatic change. Yet identifying “lessons from the past” is not straightforward. Especially in the case of big questions about his…
Resilience in Environmental History Discourse
Resilience is a boundary object, holding different meanings for the different groups of scholars who share its use. Here we survey its application in historical research, especially premodern environmental history, and trace how the term entered historical discourse from ecology. A shift in recent decades expanded the term initially toward contemporary social science and subsequently the study of the past. This has resulted in a fuzzy conceptuali…
Society, climate and history
Identifying and explaining the relationships between society and environment presents many challenges to the historian. This article sets out some of these using a case study from late Roman Arabia in the century preceding the rise of Islam. The first half of the 6th century CE in Arabia was particularly marked by the demise of Himyar, the dominant power in the region until 525 CE. Hydroclimate records from and around Southern Arabia, including a…
Debate. Was There a Medieval »State«
This debate takes up the question whether the concept of »state« can be used meaningfully in the context of medieval studies. The opening article by Brent D. Shaw addresses the political organization of the Roman empire, and develops a comprehensive argument why even by high standards it should be regarded as a state. The six comments by Nicola Di Cosmo (Chinese History), Stefano Gasparri and Cristina La Rocca, Hans-Werner Goetz, Régine Le Jan (E…
Managing the Roman Empire for the Long Term
This chapter analyses the reasons for the survival of the eastern Roman state from three different but complementary angles: imperial administration, the environmental conditions impacting land-use for the period, and the ability of the state to leverage resources. We conclude that a major contributory factor in survival was the effective use of natural resources and a self-reinforcing social-ecological system through which the state and its elit…
L'émergence d'une histoire environnementale interdisciplinaire
Avec l'efflorescence des approches paléoscientifiques du passé, les historiens ont été confrontés à une multitude de nouveaux indices sur des phénomènes tant humains que naturels, des maladies aux migrations en passant par les transformations du paysage et le climat. Ces données inédites exigent une réécriture des récits portant sur les périodes lointaines, remettant en cause à la fois les fondements de l'autorité des sources historiques traditio…
The Political Economy of Empire
Empires are both simple and complex, since on the one hand they are broadly identifiable through a small number of key elements in common, yet on the other hand, no single “version” of empire exists. The political economy of traditional empires can be approached through certain key features, even if their forms and their “cultural geography” vary widely—in particular, the acquisition of and control over resources, and the closely associated issue…
A New Edition of the De cerimoniis
This review article presents a brief survey of the new critical edition, translation and commentary of the important tenth-century Byzantine imperial treatise known as the De cerimoniis aulae byzantinae (on the ceremonial of the Byzantine court), a title ascribed to the text only in the 16th century. The edition offers an upto- date and highly accurate edition of the tenth century manuscripts through which the text has been transmitted and the de…
The Fate of the Late Roman Senatorial Elite
Kekaumenos
Obwohl als Stratēgikon bezeichnet, ist dieser Text ein moralisierender Traktat, der wohl in den letzten zwei Dekaden des 11. Jh.s angeblich für den Sohn oder die Söhne des Autors verfasst wurde. Er besteht aus einzelnen Sektionen, die alle speziellen Fragen bezüglich Personen in einer bestimmten Position gewidmet sind – ein Provinzrichter, ein Militärkommandant in der Provinz oder im Grenzgebiet (bei Weitem der größere Teil des Textes), ein kaise…
Reflections on the Avkat Archaeological Project
The Avkat Archaeological Project took place in Turkey between 2006 and 2010. Like many modern projects, it attempted to shed some light on rural, elite, and non-elite systems of the Medieval period in the eastern Mediterranean. The fieldwork of the project is now over and a publication has been produced. Here we want to discuss a much more reflective, indeed, rather biographic, set of observations about the Avkat Archaeological Project
Demystifying Collapse
Collapse is a term that has attracted much attention in social science literature in recent years, but there remain substantial areas of disagreement about how it should be understood in historical contexts. More specifically, the use of the term collapse often merely serves to dramatize long-past events, to push human actors into the background, and to mystify the past intellectually. At the same time, since human societies are complex systems, …
Peter Heather. Rome Resurgent
Peter Heather has a well-earned reputation as one of the leading scholars of the relations between the later Roman world and its non-Roman neighbors, and in Rome Resurgent: War and Empire in the Age of Justinian, he turns his attention to the remarkable series of events that resulted in the east Roman reconquest of North Africa from the Vandals, Italy from the kingdom of the Ostrogoths, and parts of southeast Spain from the Visigothic Kingdom. Th…
History meets palaeoscience
History and archaeology have a well-established engagement with issues of premodern societal development and the interaction between physical and cultural environments; together, they offer a holistic view that can generate insights into the nature of cultural resilience and adaptation, as well as responses to catastrophe. Grasping the challenges that climate change presents and evolving appropriate policies that promote and support mitigation an…
Plagues, climate change, and the end of an empire. A response to Kyle Harper's The Fate of Rome (2)
This is the second of a three‐section review of Kyle Harper's The Fate of Rome in which we examine in detail Harper's treatment of two allegedly widespread and mortal Roman outbreaks of disease. In the case of the second‐century Antonine plague, we demonstrate that Harper overlooked a major controversy and instead portrayed an oversimplified narrative of a catastrophic event. In the case of the third‐century Cyprianic plague, we call attention to…
Society and Environment in the East Mediterranean ca 300–1800 CE. Problems of Resilience, Adaptation and Transformation. Introductory Essay
Modelling Climate and Societal Resilience in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Last Millennium
This article analyses high-quality hydroclimate proxy records and spatial reconstructions from the Central and Eastern Mediterranean and compares them with two Earth System Model simulations (CCSM4, MPI-ESM-P) for the Crusader period in the Levant (1095-1290 CE), the Mamluk regime in Transjordan (1260-1516 CE) and the Ottoman crisis and Celâlî Rebellion (1580-1610 CE). During the three time intervals, environmental and climatic stress tested the …
Plagues, climate change, and the end of an empire
Kyle Harper's The Fate of Rome , written for a popular audience, uses the environment to explain the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. The book asserts that Rome fell as a result of environmental stress, in particular through a combination of pandemic disease and climate change. Although we agree that the environment can and should be integrated within traditional historical accounts, we challenge the book's claims on several issues. These in…
The state and the tributary mode of production
In this groundbreaking critique of both traditional and Marxist notions of feudalism and of the precapitalist state, John Haldon considers the configuration of state and social relations in medieval Europe and Mughal India as well as in Byzantium and the Ottoman Empire. He argues that a Marxist account of the precapitalist state can take account of the autonomy of power relations and avoid economic reductionism while still focusing on the forms o…
Not the End of the World? Post-Classical Decline and Recovery in Rural Anatolia
Historical landscape change in Cappadocia (central Turkey)
Coupled multiproxy indicators (pollen, stable isotopes and charcoal) reconstructed from annually laminated lake sediments from Nar GölÃ1⁄4 in Cappadocia (central Turkey) complemented by documentary and archaeological evidence provide a detailed record of environmental changes and their causes from late Antiquity (AD 300) to the present day. Stable isotope data indicate marked shifts in the variability in summer drought intensity and winter—spring…
The Climate and Environment of Byzantine Anatolia
The integration of high-resolution archaeological, textual, and environmental data with longer-term, low-resolution data affords greater precision in identifying some of the causal relationships underlying societal change. Regional and microregional case studies about the Byzantine world-in particular, Anatolia, which for several centuries was the heart of that world-reveal many of the difficulties that researchers face when attempting to assess …
Some Aspects of Byzantine Military Technology from the Sixth to the Tenth Centuries
Byzantine military technology remains to be examined thoroughly, despite its importance in demonstrating the Byzantines’ ability to absorb ideas and practices from areas outside me Empire as well as developing their own traditions. This article examines arms and armour from the mid-sixth century to the end of the tenth century and puts the military panoply into a wider context, that of the development of offensive and defensive military equipment…
Plagues, climate change, and the end of an empire
Kyle Harper's The Fate of Rome , written for a popular audience, uses the environment to explain the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. The book asserts that Rome fell as a result of environmental stress, in particular through a combination of pandemic disease and climate change. Although we agree that the environment can and should be integrated within traditional historical accounts, we challenge the book's claims on several issues. These in…
The feudalism debate once more
This article takes up one aspect of the debate on feudalism and non-European societies. Through a review of elements of the social and economic history of the late Roman and Byzantine states, it seeks to demonstrate, first, how and why these social formations should be considered feudal; second, that a broad application of the concept of the feudal mode of production as a concept of political economy is both theoretically more valid and analytica…
The Ottoman state and the question of state autonomy
Theories of Practice
Jairus Banaji’s collection of essays is a stimulating and provocative assessment of recent Marxist history-writing on issues of social theory and historical development in both ancient as well as modern societies. It challenges the overly simplistic application of Marx’s categories of analysis, arguing for both complexity and a clearer theorisation of fundamental terminology and analytical tropes, including labour-process and mode of production. …
Jargon’ vs. ‘the Facts’? Byzantine History-Writing and Contemporary Debates
In recent years ‘theory’ has been much debated in journals devoted to, among other areas of study, literary and historical research. Depending on your outlook, theory is seen either as of positive value to an advance in the understanding of a particular problem or set of problems; or as an irritating irrelevance, indeed a hindrance, to the progress of good research work. Many ‘theorists’, certainly, have gone to the extreme of dismissing empirica…
Plagues, climate change, and the end of an empire
This is the last of a three‐part review of Kyle Harper's The Fate of Rome . Here, we scrutinize Harper's treatment of the Justinianic Plague, demonstrating how he crafts a convincing narrative based on rhetorical flourishes but little evidence. We call further attention to several internal contradictions within the chapter and misinterpretations of evidence. We conclude this series of articles with a reflection on Harper's deterministic approach …
Past Answers to Present Concerns. The Relevance of the Premodern Past for 21st Century Policy Planners
How is history relevant to the present, or indeed the future? Governments around the world have used history to inform planning and decision‐making in various fields for years, but more recently it has taken on a renewed importance as governments grapple with increasingly complex challenges arising from the impacts of climatic change. Yet identifying “lessons from the past” is not straightforward. Especially in the case of big questions about his…
L'émergence d'une histoire environnementale interdisciplinaire
Avec l'efflorescence des approches paléoscientifiques du passé, les historiens ont été confrontés à une multitude de nouveaux indices sur des phénomènes tant humains que naturels, des maladies aux migrations en passant par les transformations du paysage et le climat. Ces données inédites exigent une réécriture des récits portant sur les périodes lointaines, remettant en cause à la fois les fondements de l'autorité des sources historiques traditio…
Framing the Early Middle Ages
Chris Wickham’s important intervention in debates about the transformation of the Roman world from the fifth century onwards presents a vast array of evidence about the nature of social relations, the economy and the late-Roman and early-medieval state across the Mediterranean and Western-European world. Wickham is successful in taking into account both the high level of regional variation and differentiation across the Roman world and, at the sa…
Evidence from Rome for the image of Christ on the Chalke gate in Constantinople
The biography of Pope Zacharias (741-52) in the Liber Pontificalis gives an account of his building-works and embellishments at the papal Lateran palace. After describing a new dining-room ( triclinium ) and an oratory and portico of St. Silvester, the account goes on to say: Fecit autem a fundamentis ante scrinium Lateranensem porticum atque turrem ubi et portas ereas atque cancellos instituit et per figuram Salvatoris ante fores ornavit; et per…
Synônê
The history of Byzantine fiscal administration, as is well-known, is still an area in which many problems remain to be resolved. In 1880 the Russian Byzantinist V.G. Vassilievsky, one of the first historians to address them seriously, described Byzantine fiscal structures as labyrinthine; other scholars have not disagreed. But as a result of the work of successive generations, we are in a much better position today to understand the fundamental l…
Comes Horreorum — Komēs tēs Lamias
It is a fact that very little is known of the organisation of the storage and distribution of grain at Constantinople by the imperial government after the later sixth/early seventh century. Until this time, the supply was assured through the bureau of the praetorian prefect of the East and his subordinate, the comes horreorum, along with the latter's staff of humerarii and chartularii, who had charge of the public (state) granaries; and through a…
Some Aspects of Byzantine Military Technology from the Sixth to the Tenth Centuries
Byzantine military technology remains to be examined thoroughly, despite its importance in demonstrating the Byzantines’ ability to absorb ideas and practices from areas outside me Empire as well as developing their own traditions. This article examines arms and armour from the mid-sixth century to the end of the tenth century and puts the military panoply into a wider context, that of the development of offensive and defensive military equipment…
Jargon’ vs. ‘the Facts’? Byzantine History-Writing and Contemporary Debates
In recent years ‘theory’ has been much debated in journals devoted to, among other areas of study, literary and historical research. Depending on your outlook, theory is seen either as of positive value to an advance in the understanding of a particular problem or set of problems; or as an irritating irrelevance, indeed a hindrance, to the progress of good research work. Many ‘theorists’, certainly, have gone to the extreme of dismissing empirica…
Comes Horreorum — Komēs tēs Lamias
It is a fact that very little is known of the organisation of the storage and distribution of grain at Constantinople by the imperial government after the later sixth/early seventh century. Until this time, the supply was assured through the bureau of the praetorian prefect of the East and his subordinate, the comes horreorum, along with the latter's staff of humerarii and chartularii, who had charge of the public (state) granaries; and through a…
Everyday Life in Byzantium
General interest in the ‘everyday’ life of past societies and cultures, particularly when they are felt to be relevant to our own civilisation and its history, is a widespread and usually taken-for-granted phenomenon of our times. Books on subjects such as ‘Everyday life in Greece and Rome’ or ‘Daily life in Carthage’, consisting of popularised (and often, perhaps inevitably,’ rather oversimplified, and even muddled) renderings of more esoteric s…
Byzantium Transformed
WARREN TREADOOLD. The Byzantine Revival 780–843. Stanford : Stanford University Press, 1988. Pp. xv, 504. $49.50 (US). Reviewed by J.F. Haldon
The feudalism debate once more
This article takes up one aspect of the debate on feudalism and non-European societies. Through a review of elements of the social and economic history of the late Roman and Byzantine states, it seeks to demonstrate, first, how and why these social formations should be considered feudal; second, that a broad application of the concept of the feudal mode of production as a concept of political economy is both theoretically more valid and analytica…
Byzantium in the Seventh Century
This book presents the first analytical account in English of the major developments within Byzantine culture, society and the state in the crucial formative period from c. 610 to 717. Since its original publication in 1990, the text has been revised throughout to take account of the latest research. The seventh century saw the final collapse of ancient urban civilisation and municipal culture, the rise of Islam, the evolution of patterns of thou…
The Ottoman state and the question of state autonomy
The army and the economy
Medieval civilization 400–1500
Byzantium in the Seventh Century
Synônê
The history of Byzantine fiscal administration, as is well-known, is still an area in which many problems remain to be resolved. In 1880 the Russian Byzantinist V.G. Vassilievsky, one of the first historians to address them seriously, described Byzantine fiscal structures as labyrinthine; other scholars have not disagreed. But as a result of the work of successive generations, we are in a much better position today to understand the fundamental l…
Invisible cities, hidden agendas
The Invisible City. Monetary, Administrative and Popular Infrastures in Asia and Europe, 1500–1900, by Frank Perlin. Aldershot: Variorum, 1993. Pp.xii + 366. £49.50. ISBN 086 078 342 1 This review article examines briefly the recent publication by Frank Perlin of a series of revised articles dealing with theoretical and methodological issues in South Asian history, in particular the period from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. Perlin's appr…
The Late Byzantine Army
Evidence from Rome for the image of Christ on the Chalke gate in Constantinople
The biography of Pope Zacharias (741-52) in the Liber Pontificalis gives an account of his building-works and embellishments at the papal Lateran palace. After describing a new dining-room ( triclinium ) and an oratory and portico of St. Silvester, the account goes on to say: Fecit autem a fundamentis ante scrinium Lateranensem porticum atque turrem ubi et portas ereas atque cancellos instituit et per figuram Salvatoris ante fores ornavit; et per…
Housing the stranger in the Mediterranean world
The Palgrave Atlas of Byzantine History
The dominant Mediterranean power in the fifth and sixth centuries, by the time of its demise at the hands of the Ottomans in 1453 the Byzantine empire was a shadow of its former self restricted essent
Palgrave Atlas of Byzantine History
The Church
The Christian Church and the development of Christianity were fundamental to the cultural and political evolution of the empire. For Constantine I the Church had been a valued political ally in his effort to stabilise the empire and to consolidate his own power. For that reason it had been essential that the church remained united: discord and disagreement was politically threatening for an emperor who privileged the Christian Church in terms of …
Economy and Administration
In the course of Justinian’s reign, the apparatus of government dealt with continuing changes in social and economic relationships throughout the empire, altered relations between the imperial court and the church, and a series of reconquests of former imperial territory that were remarkably successful but expensive in manpower and cash. In this context of rapid change at home and abroad, flaws in the machinery of government came to the fore and …
Social Transformation in the 6th–9th C. East
This paper summarises some archaeological and documentary evidence for the changes seen in the East Roman empire between the 6th and the 9th c., and suggests how this evidence may be placed within a broader theoretical framework relating to pre-modern social systems. Whilst archaeological evidence for the latter part of the period remains very limited, that for the 6th and 7th c. reveals a marked retreat from urban life towards more defensible si…
The Paths of History, Igor M. Diakonoff
Province Strikes Back
In 2024, the publisher of PMFIA series (Foundation for the Finnish Institute of Athens) decided to re-publish all previous volumes of the series, earlier available in printed form only, in an open-access format. Simultaneously, the contributions have been re-licensed with Creative commons license standard CC BY-NC, now commonly used in scientific publishing. The volumes, and the individual articles contained within them, have also been addigned D…
Military Technology and Warfare
The military technology of Byzantium played a major role in the evolution of the defensive and offensive techniques common to the western Eurasian world. In the later fifth and sixth centuries, those who made up the first and second ranks in the Byzantine infantry were the ones who primarily wore the full defensive panoply. To protect themselves against the enemy, soldiers used breastplates, helmets, leg-armors, and wide round or oval shields. Th…
Political-Historical Survey, 518–800
History (47 obras) · Political science (32 obras) · Ancient history (28 obras) · Archaeology (23 obras) · Byzantine Studies and History (23 obras) · Law (23 obras) · Sociology (22 obras) · Byzantine architecture (20 obras) · Politics (20 obras) · History (18 obras)