The Monotheisation Of Ponticcaspian Eurasia From The Eighth To The Thirteenth Century Alex M Feldman by Alex M. Feldman 9781474478120, 1474478123 instant download after payment.

• Offers a comparative approach to the study of previous understandings of ethnogenesis and state-formation across 8-13th-c. Western Eurasia
• Challenges conventional notions of ethnogenesis, state-formation and periodization
• Relies on a variety of source materials and methodologies in order to facilitate a holistic rendering of archaeological and textual questions, offering new methodological combinations for future historians to consider

What is the line between the ancient and medieval worlds? 330? 476? 800? Most historians acknowledge that these are arbitrary distinctions, but they remain nevertheless, taking on lives of their own. Alex Feldman challenging us to see them as the same world, except for the imposition of a given monotheism.

In this process, he studies top-down, monotheistic conversions in Western Eurasia and their respective mythologisations, preserved both textually and archaeologically, serving as the foundation of recognisable state-formation.

Applying this idea to Byzantium’s policies around the Black and Caspian Seas, he reveals how what we today call the ‘Migration-Age’ continued perpetually up to the Mongolian invasions and perhaps later. This book enhances our understanding, not only of Western history, but presents it in the context of global monotheisation.