{"id":55161,"date":"2026-09-02T13:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=55161"},"modified":"2026-09-01T11:04:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T09:04:20","slug":"james-howard-johnston-byzantium-in-a-changing-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=55161","title":{"rendered":"James Howard-Johnston, \u201eByzantium in a Changing World\u201c"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Byzantium is commonly taken to be a somewhat exotic entity on the margin of medieval Europe\u2014bureaucratic, Greek- rather than Latin-speaking, Orthodox rather than Catholic, wealthy and effete, relying on cunning rather than martial exploits to foil its enemies. Since the great majority of primary sources emanate from the polity&#8217;s capital, it is viewed from the inside out and from the top down. <em>Byzantium in a Changing World<\/em> takes a very different approach, viewing Byzantium and its east Roman predecessor from the outside, as they cope with all manner of external threats, above all the Sasanian empire and later the Arabs after they destroyed the ancient world order in the seventh century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What emerges is the history of a state which managed to preserve its ideology, its culture, its religion, and its fundamental structures as it was assailed from without. In addition to the two great eastern adversaries, a succession of predatory powers was fought off: Huns and Avars in late antiquity, followed by Bulgars in the dark age, joined by Hungarians, Pechenegs, and Rus in the following era of revival. In this accessible introduction to the history of Byzantium, with six chronologically organised chapters covering the period from Late Antiquity until the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, James Howard-Johnston argues that Byzantium geared itself to war in the seventh century, that the peasant village emerged as the basis of the social order, and that it was a guerrilla style of warfare combined with well-targeted diplomatic activity which ensured the state&#8217;s survival and subsequent revival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>James Howard-Johnston<\/strong> (1942.) britanski je povjesni\u010dar i bizantolog. Od 1971. do 2009. predavao je bizantske studije na Sveu\u010dili\u0161tu u Oxfordu, gdje je danas emeritusni \u010dlan Corpus Christi Collegea. Bavi se rimskom i bizantskom vojnom povije\u0161\u0107u, me\u0111unarodnim odnosima u kasnoj antici i ranome srednjem vijeku, kasnoanti\u010dkim Iranom te bizantskom historiografijom, a me\u0111u njegovim su va\u017enijim djelima \u201eWitnesses to a World Crisis\u201c, \u201eThe Last Great War of Antiquity\u201c i \u201eByzantium in a Changing World\u201c.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Table of Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Introduction<br>1:Late Antiquity<br>2:Dark Age<br>3:Age of Revival<br>4:Byzantium at its Apogee<br>5:Komnenian Age<br>6:Last Centuries<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Objavljeno: 2025.<br>ISBN: 9780198897873<br>320 str.<br>Oxford University Press<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Op\u0161irnije: <a href=\"https:\/\/global.oup.com\/academic\/product\/byzantium-in-a-changing-world-9780198897873?cc=hr&amp;lang=en&amp;#\">https:\/\/global.oup.com\/academic\/product\/byzantium-in-a-changing-world-9780198897873?cc=hr&amp;lang=en&amp;#<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":55162,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-knjige","category-novosti"],"acf":{"facebook_opis":"\u201eByzantium in a Changing World\u201c Jamesa Howard-Johnstona promatra povijest Bizanta izvana, kroz njegove sukobe s okolnim silama te vojne i diplomatske prilagodbe koje su mu omogu\u0107ile vi\u0161estoljetni opstanak."},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Byzantium-in-Changing-World.webp?fit=939%2C1418&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":55119,"url":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=55119","url_meta":{"origin":55161,"position":0},"title":"Anthony Kaldellis, \u201ePhantom Byzantium: Europe, Empire, and Identity from Late Antiquity to World War II\u201c","author":"Filip \u0160imunjak","date":"28. kolovoza 2026.","format":false,"excerpt":"How the West appropriated aspects of the eastern Roman empire while portraying it as inferior.Unveiling the ideological foundations of Byzantine studies, Phantom Byzantium is a pioneering survey of western European perceptions of the eastern Roman empire (also known as Byzantium) spanning late antiquity to World War II. Through ten chronological\u2026","rel":"","context":"U &quot;Knjige&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Knjige","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?cat=8"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Phantom-Byzantium.webp?fit=795%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Phantom-Byzantium.webp?fit=795%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Phantom-Byzantium.webp?fit=795%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Phantom-Byzantium.webp?fit=795%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":55114,"url":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=55114","url_meta":{"origin":55161,"position":1},"title":"\u201eWorlds of Byzantium: Religion, Culture, and Empire in the Medieval Near East\u201c, ur. Elizabeth S. Bolman, Scott Fitzgerald Johnson, Jack Tannous","author":"Filip \u0160imunjak","date":"27. kolovoza 2026.","format":false,"excerpt":"Worlds of Byzantium offers a new understanding of what it means to study the history and visual culture of the Byzantine empire during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Arguing that linguistic and cultural frontiers do not always coincide with political ones, it suggests that Byzantine studies should look not\u2026","rel":"","context":"U &quot;Knjige&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Knjige","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?cat=8"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Worlds-of-Byzantium.webp?fit=373%2C536&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":55107,"url":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=55107","url_meta":{"origin":55161,"position":2},"title":"Leonora Neville, \u201eSailing Away from Byzantium Toward East Roman History\u201c","author":"Filip \u0160imunjak","date":"28. kolovoza 2026.","format":false,"excerpt":"Although the first thing one learns about the 'Byzantine Empire' is that it was really the eastern Roman empire, scholars have preferred to call it 'Byzantine' in a repudiation of the self-conception and emic vocabulary of the inhabitants of that polity. The terminology of 'Byzantium' artificially severs the 'medieval' eastern\u2026","rel":"","context":"U &quot;E-knjige&quot;","block_context":{"text":"E-knjige","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?cat=19"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Sailing-Away-from-Byzantium-Toward-East-Roman-History.webp?fit=368%2C543&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":55129,"url":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=55129","url_meta":{"origin":55161,"position":3},"title":"\u201eRevisiting the Byzantine Commonwealth: Nodes, Networks, and Spheres\u201c, ur. Jonathan Shepard, Peter Frankopan","author":"Filip \u0160imunjak","date":"27. kolovoza 2026.","format":false,"excerpt":"The Byzantine phenomenon posed problems of characterization for contemporary observers, as it does for modern commentators. The concept of the Byzantine Commonwealth was coined by Dimitri Obolensky to characterize the medley of societies and polities that came under the aegis of the emperor and were kept in line with the\u2026","rel":"","context":"U &quot;Knjige&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Knjige","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?cat=8"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Revisiting-the-Byzantine-Commonwealth.webp?fit=520%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":55104,"url":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=55104","url_meta":{"origin":55161,"position":4},"title":"Anthony Kaldellis, \u201eThe Case for East Roman Studies\u201c","author":"Filip \u0160imunjak","date":"28. kolovoza 2026.","format":false,"excerpt":"Byzantine Studies has reached a tipping point: a growing number of historians have realized that the terms \u201cByzantium\u201d and \u201cthe Byzantines\u201d distort the reality and identity of the society that we study, and encode a series of prejudices that were embedded in western perceptions. The aim of these terms was\u2026","rel":"","context":"U &quot;Knjige&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Knjige","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?cat=8"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/The-Case-for-East-Roman-Studies-Kaldellis.webp?fit=596%2C927&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/The-Case-for-East-Roman-Studies-Kaldellis.webp?fit=596%2C927&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/The-Case-for-East-Roman-Studies-Kaldellis.webp?fit=596%2C927&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":53155,"url":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=53155","url_meta":{"origin":55161,"position":5},"title":"25. 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Since the first congress in 1924 in Bucharest, it has been held approximately every five years in different locations, attracting up to 1,500\u2026","rel":"","context":"U &quot;Novosti&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Novosti","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/25.-Medunarodni-kongres-bizantskih-studija-.webp?fit=1164%2C431&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/25.-Medunarodni-kongres-bizantskih-studija-.webp?fit=1164%2C431&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/25.-Medunarodni-kongres-bizantskih-studija-.webp?fit=1164%2C431&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/25.-Medunarodni-kongres-bizantskih-studija-.webp?fit=1164%2C431&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/25.-Medunarodni-kongres-bizantskih-studija-.webp?fit=1164%2C431&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55161"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55163,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55161\/revisions\/55163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/55162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}