Empire to Commonwealth : : Consequences of Monotheism in Late Antiquity / / Garth Fowden.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press eBook-Package Archive 1927-1999
• VerfasserIn: Fowden, Garth,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2021]; ©1993
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (232 p.) :; 10 plates

In this bold approach to late antiquity, Garth Fowden shows how, from the second-century peak of Rome's prosperity to the ninth-century onset of the Islamic Empire's decline, powerful beliefs in One God were used to justify and strengthen "world empires." But tensions between orthodoxy and heresy that were inherent in monotheism broke the unitary empires of Byzantium and Baghdad into the looser, more pluralistic commonwealths of Eastern Christendom and Islam. With rare breadth of vision, Fowden traces this transition from empire to commonwealth, and in the process exposes the sources of major cultural contours that still play a determining role in Europe and southwest Asia.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of illustrations -- Abbreviations -- Note on transliteration and references -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. The world's two eyes: Iran, Rome, and the pursuit of world empire -- 2. Polytheist Rome: Toward cultural universalism within empire -- 3. The Fertile Crescent: Cultural universalism between and beyond empires -- 4. Constantine: Christian empire and crusade -- 5. The First Byzantine Commonwealth: Interactions of political and cultural universalism -- 6. Islam: World empire, then commonwealth -- Epilogue -- Bibliography -- Index