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Record Nr. |
UNINA9910787544003321 |
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Autore |
Kaldellis Anthony |
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Titolo |
Ethnography after antiquity [[electronic resource] ] : foreign lands and peoples in Byzantine literature / / Anthony Kaldellis |
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Pubbl/distr/stampa |
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Philadelphia, : University of Pennsylvania Press, c2013 |
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ISBN |
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Edizione |
[1st ed.] |
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Descrizione fisica |
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1 online resource (288 p.) |
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Collana |
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Soggetti |
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Byzantine literature - Themes, motives |
Cultural awareness - Byzantine Empire |
Ethnic attitudes in literature |
Ethnic attitudes - Byzantine Empire |
Ethnology - Byzantine Empire |
Foreign countries in literature |
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Lingua di pubblicazione |
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Formato |
Materiale a stampa |
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Livello bibliografico |
Monografia |
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Note generali |
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Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph |
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Nota di bibliografia |
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Includes bibliographical references and index. |
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Nota di contenuto |
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Front matter -- Contents -- Preface -- Chapter 1. Ethnography in Late Antique Historiography -- Chapter 2. Byzantine Information- Gathering Behind the Veil of Silence -- Chapter 3. Explaining the Relative Decline of Ethnography in the Middle Period -- Chapter 4. The Genres and Politics of Middle Byzantine Ethnography -- Chapter 5. Ethnography in Palaiologan Literature -- Epilogue: Looking to a New World -- Abbreviations -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- Acknowledgments |
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Sommario/riassunto |
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Although Greek and Roman authors wrote ethnographic texts describing foreign cultures, ethnography seems to disappear from Byzantine literature after the seventh century C.E.-a perplexing exception for a culture so strongly self-identified with the Roman empire. Yet the Byzantines, geographically located at the heart of the upheavals that led from the ancient to the modern world, had abundant and sophisticated knowledge of the cultures with which they struggled and bargained. Ethnography After Antiquity examines both the instances and omissions of Byzantine ethnography, exploring the political and religious motivations for writing (or not writing) about other peoples. Through the ethnographies embedded in classical |
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histories, military manuals, Constantine VII's De administrando imperio, and religious literature, Anthony Kaldellis shows Byzantine authors using accounts of foreign cultures as vehicles to critique their own state or to demonstrate Romano-Christian superiority over Islam. He comes to the startling conclusion that the Byzantines did not view cultural differences through a purely theological prism: their Roman identity, rather than their orthodoxy, was the vital distinction from cultures they considered heretic and barbarian. Filling in the previously unexplained gap between antiquity and the resurgence of ethnography in the late Byzantine period, Ethnography After Antiquity offers new perspective on how Byzantium positioned itself with and against the dramatically shifting world. |
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