David A. Graff. The Eurasian Way of War

At first glance, a monograph whose author compares Byzantium with China is surprising. But both civilizations shared centuries of political and cultural persistence, and both were states in the proper sense, with developed bureaucracies, standing armies, literate elite professional administrators, and durable institutions that survived chaotic periods when the head of state was either weak or entirely absent. Skeptics may reasonably posit that two civilizations as distant in space as Tang China (c.e. 618–907) and Byzantium (c.e. 330–1453) had little to no direct contact with one another and can thus have neither influenced one another nor shared a common set of cultural practices that historians can study to learn about both societies. Nonetheless, as students of military history will recognize, there are strong similarities in the types of warfare expressed by Byzantine and Chinese practitioners. This is especially apparent when one reads and compares primary sources such as the Strategikon, attributed to the Byzantine general and emperor Maurice (r. 582–602), and the “Military Methods” of the early Tang general Li Jing (571–649).

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