Jonathan Karam Skaff
Biographic Data
| ID | 1249670 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jonathan Karam Skaff |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jonathan Karam |
| FAMILY NAME | Skaff |
| SIGNATURE | SKAFF J K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Shippensburg University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 120 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 16 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The Early Medieval Tradition of Eurasian Diplomacy, Sixth to Tenth Centuries
Studies of imperial Chinese and Byzantine diplomacy conventionally assume that their diplomatic norms had indigenous origins that became models for neighbouring polities. This chapter questions this assumption by comparing the diplomatic traditions of empires of Sui and Tang China (581–907), Byzantium (395–1453), Sasanian Iran (224–651), Turkic polities, and smaller Eurasian states. Eurasia shared diplomatic protocols incorporating pageantry, sta…
Silk Roads, Steppe Roads
The King's Road
Xin Wen's first book is a study of the eastern Silk Road in the period from 850 to 1000 in the wake of the decline of the expansive Tang, Tibetan, and Uighur empires. The author argues that this phase of Silk Road history should be called the “King's Road” because state-sponsored diplomatic travel was the dominant mode of long-distance communication among the independent kingdoms that had emerged at Dunhuang, Khotan, Turfan, Ganzhou, and other oa…
The Way of the Barbarians
Reviewed by: The Way of the Barbarians: Redrawing Ethnic Boundaries in Tang and Song China by Shao-yun Yang Jonathan Karam Skaff Shao-yun Yang. The Way of the Barbarians: Redrawing Ethnic Boundaries in Tang and Song China. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019. Pp. 242. $30 (paper); $99 (hardcover). ISBN 978-0295746036 Shao-yun Yang investigates intellectual shifts in "premodern Chinese attitudes regarding ethnocultural identity and diffe…
Albert E. Dien
Albert Eugene Dien found his calling while digging under his porch when he was still in elementary school. Uncovering an adobe brick, he experienced joy of exploration and discovery that has not le
Jinping Wang. In the Wake of the Mongols
Jinping Wang’s In the Wake of the Mongols: The Making of a New Social Order in North China, 1200–1600 opens our eyes to the potential of the historian to venture into the countryside in search of unpublished epigraphic sources. The inscriptional evidence that she discovered on steles in Shanxi Province contributes to an ambitious book seeking to investigate the development of rural society in north China over the course of four centuries. Her exc…
Reuven Amitai and Michal Biran, editors. Nomads as Agents of Cultural Change
This edited volume, exploring the role of pastoral nomads as agents of cultural change in premodern Eurasian history, originated at a conference convened at Hebrew University in 2007. The eleven contributors are leading experts on Inner Asian history, including the co-editors Reuven Amitai and Michal Biran, and senior scholars Thomas T. Allsen, Anatoly M. Khazanov, Morris Rossabi, and David Morgan. In this elite company, Allsen stands out as the …
Breaking Bonds
This chapter discusses the contingent forces that support the bond between patrons and clients. It takes a look at interstate agreements that were formed in the guise of patron-client ties, which were similar to those of domestic patrimonial politics. It shows the vulnerabilities of a ruler’s additional ties with outer clients and the effects of multipolar state relations. This chapter also considers the Sui-Tang and Turko-Mongol monarchs’ search…
Power through Patronage
This chapter examines Turko-Mongol khanates and introduces a cosmopolitan type of patrimonialism. It takes a look at local society during the North China rebellions, the Sui-Tang imperial palaces, and the Tang bureaucracy and frontier military. This chapter reveals that the contrasting elements of society were combined together politically by patrimonial rulership, horizontal alliances, and vertical patron-client relationships in the Sui, Tang, a…
Eastern Eurasian Geography, History, and Warfare
Beyond the Silk Roads
This concluding chapter summarizes the major insights of the cultures of the Sui-Tang and Turkic empires, the connections of China with its Turko-Mongol neighbors, and the Eastern Eurasian balance of power. It first looks at the cultures of the Sui-Tang, Turko-Mongol, and Eurasians, and notes that their cultural uniformities helped smoothen diplomatic relations between these societies. It then examines formal patron-client ties, which were streng…
Sui-Tang China and Its Turko-Mongol Neighbors
Loyalties Divided
Survival in the Frontier Zone
This paper investigates the relationship between identities and political allegiances on premodern frontiers. The first half of the paper is a case study of interactions between Turks and Chinese elites and commoners during the Sui-Tang dynastic transition. The second half compares Roman, mid-imperial Chinese, and early Islamic frontiers. The paper concludes that people in frontier zones tended to forge political ties based on self-interest and p…
The Sogdian Trade Diaspora in East Turkestan During the Seventh and Eighth Centuries
Evidence from Chinese documents supports the hypothesis that Sogdians dominated Silk Road trade in East Turkestan during the seventh and eighth centuries. The merchants lived and/or traveled among a diaspora of Sogdians who settled in the oasis cities of the region and also practiced farming and handicraft making. Some traders traveled the entire distance between China and West Asia, but others operated along circumscribed routes that connected t…
Barbarians at the Gates? The Tang Frontier Military and the An Lushan Rebellion
Silk Roads, Steppe Roads
Sui-Tang China and Its Turko-Mongol Neighbors
The Sogdian Trade Diaspora in East Turkestan During the Seventh and Eighth Centuries
Evidence from Chinese documents supports the hypothesis that Sogdians dominated Silk Road trade in East Turkestan during the seventh and eighth centuries. The merchants lived and/or traveled among a diaspora of Sogdians who settled in the oasis cities of the region and also practiced farming and handicraft making. Some traders traveled the entire distance between China and West Asia, but others operated along circumscribed routes that connected t…
Barbarians at the Gates? The Tang Frontier Military and the An Lushan Rebellion
Barbarians at the Gates? The Tang Frontier Military and the An Lushan Rebellion
The Sogdian Trade Diaspora in East Turkestan During the Seventh and Eighth Centuries
Evidence from Chinese documents supports the hypothesis that Sogdians dominated Silk Road trade in East Turkestan during the seventh and eighth centuries. The merchants lived and/or traveled among a diaspora of Sogdians who settled in the oasis cities of the region and also practiced farming and handicraft making. Some traders traveled the entire distance between China and West Asia, but others operated along circumscribed routes that connected t…
Survival in the Frontier Zone
This paper investigates the relationship between identities and political allegiances on premodern frontiers. The first half of the paper is a case study of interactions between Turks and Chinese elites and commoners during the Sui-Tang dynastic transition. The second half compares Roman, mid-imperial Chinese, and early Islamic frontiers. The paper concludes that people in frontier zones tended to forge political ties based on self-interest and p…
Loyalties Divided
Breaking Bonds
This chapter discusses the contingent forces that support the bond between patrons and clients. It takes a look at interstate agreements that were formed in the guise of patron-client ties, which were similar to those of domestic patrimonial politics. It shows the vulnerabilities of a ruler’s additional ties with outer clients and the effects of multipolar state relations. This chapter also considers the Sui-Tang and Turko-Mongol monarchs’ search…
Power through Patronage
This chapter examines Turko-Mongol khanates and introduces a cosmopolitan type of patrimonialism. It takes a look at local society during the North China rebellions, the Sui-Tang imperial palaces, and the Tang bureaucracy and frontier military. This chapter reveals that the contrasting elements of society were combined together politically by patrimonial rulership, horizontal alliances, and vertical patron-client relationships in the Sui, Tang, a…
Eastern Eurasian Geography, History, and Warfare
Beyond the Silk Roads
This concluding chapter summarizes the major insights of the cultures of the Sui-Tang and Turkic empires, the connections of China with its Turko-Mongol neighbors, and the Eastern Eurasian balance of power. It first looks at the cultures of the Sui-Tang, Turko-Mongol, and Eurasians, and notes that their cultural uniformities helped smoothen diplomatic relations between these societies. It then examines formal patron-client ties, which were streng…
Sui-Tang China and Its Turko-Mongol Neighbors
Reuven Amitai and Michal Biran, editors. Nomads as Agents of Cultural Change
This edited volume, exploring the role of pastoral nomads as agents of cultural change in premodern Eurasian history, originated at a conference convened at Hebrew University in 2007. The eleven contributors are leading experts on Inner Asian history, including the co-editors Reuven Amitai and Michal Biran, and senior scholars Thomas T. Allsen, Anatoly M. Khazanov, Morris Rossabi, and David Morgan. In this elite company, Allsen stands out as the …
Albert E. Dien
Albert Eugene Dien found his calling while digging under his porch when he was still in elementary school. Uncovering an adobe brick, he experienced joy of exploration and discovery that has not le
Jinping Wang. In the Wake of the Mongols
Jinping Wang’s In the Wake of the Mongols: The Making of a New Social Order in North China, 1200–1600 opens our eyes to the potential of the historian to venture into the countryside in search of unpublished epigraphic sources. The inscriptional evidence that she discovered on steles in Shanxi Province contributes to an ambitious book seeking to investigate the development of rural society in north China over the course of four centuries. Her exc…
The Way of the Barbarians
Reviewed by: The Way of the Barbarians: Redrawing Ethnic Boundaries in Tang and Song China by Shao-yun Yang Jonathan Karam Skaff Shao-yun Yang. The Way of the Barbarians: Redrawing Ethnic Boundaries in Tang and Song China. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019. Pp. 242. $30 (paper); $99 (hardcover). ISBN 978-0295746036 Shao-yun Yang investigates intellectual shifts in "premodern Chinese attitudes regarding ethnocultural identity and diffe…
The King's Road
Xin Wen's first book is a study of the eastern Silk Road in the period from 850 to 1000 in the wake of the decline of the expansive Tang, Tibetan, and Uighur empires. The author argues that this phase of Silk Road history should be called the “King's Road” because state-sponsored diplomatic travel was the dominant mode of long-distance communication among the independent kingdoms that had emerged at Dunhuang, Khotan, Turfan, Ganzhou, and other oa…
The Early Medieval Tradition of Eurasian Diplomacy, Sixth to Tenth Centuries
Studies of imperial Chinese and Byzantine diplomacy conventionally assume that their diplomatic norms had indigenous origins that became models for neighbouring polities. This chapter questions this assumption by comparing the diplomatic traditions of empires of Sui and Tang China (581–907), Byzantium (395–1453), Sasanian Iran (224–651), Turkic polities, and smaller Eurasian states. Eurasia shared diplomatic protocols incorporating pageantry, sta…
Silk Roads, Steppe Roads
Chinese history and philosophy (9 works) · Eurasian Exchange Networks (9 works) · History (9 works) · Ancient history (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · Archaeology (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Politics (6 works) · China (5 works) · Art (4 works)