I’m proud to announce that Saladin the Strategist: How the Crusaders Lost the Holy Land is finally out! You can purchase it on Amazon. This is the initial release – maps and annotations are not yet included. If you purchase it now for the discounted price, your Kindle version will automatically update when the full […] The post Saladin the Strategist is Out! appeared first on Byzantine Emporia ..read more

Photos of the eastern Mediterranean from space present an image of sharp contrasts. The coastal plain—just a few dozen kilometers at its widest—is a verdant strip, hemmed in by the coastal ranges and irrigated by the region’s winter rains. The mountains in turn cast a rain shadow on the interior: green vegetation and white snowcaps […] The post What Is the Hauran? A Small Region of Major Importance appeared first on Byzantine Emporia ..read more

Below is the transcript for the History Network Podcast episode “Byzantium’s Eastern Frontier”. You can listen to it here, or on iTunes or Spotify. The episode was based on this Twitter thread. The Byzantines, the subjects of the Eastern Roman Empire, were great survivors. They outlasted their cousins in the west by a thousand years, […] The post Byzantium’s Eastern Frontier: The Most Sophisticated Defensive System of the Middle Ages appeared first on Byzantine Emporia ..read more

The Sultan of Sultans, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, al-Malik al-Ashraf, the powerful, the Dreadful, the Punisher of Rebels, Hunter of Franks and Tartars and Armenians, Snatcher of castles from the hands of Miscreants, Lord of the Two Seas, Guardian of the Two Pilgrim Sites, Khalil al-Salihi. So began the announcement from the Mamluk […] The post Book Review: The Accursed Tower appeared first on Byzantine Emporia ..read more

We are proud to announce the publication of F.L. Taylor’s 1920 classic Art of War in Italy, 1494-1529 on the birth of Early Modern warfare during the Italian Wars. It is available to US readers here (international rights pending). Below is the editor’s preface: The Italian Wars, which opened with the roar of French cannons knocking down […] The post New Book: “The Art of War in Italy, 1494-1529 (Critical Edition)” appeared first on Byzantine Emporia ..read more

On 26 July 811, a massive Byzantine army was destroyed on the plains between the Danube and the Haemus Mountains. During the Battle of Pliska, the emperor Nicephorus I himself was killed—the first to die in battle since Valens in 378—and his head was turned into a silver-lined drinking gourd by the victorious Bulgarian khan. […] The post Drinking from the Skulls of Your Enemies: The Battle of Pliska appeared first on Byzantine Emporia ..read more

Middle Rages: Why the Battle for Medieval Studies Matters to America is the latest book from the flamboyant, rightwing bomb-thrower Milo Yiannopoulos. The short volume focuses on the curious case of Rachel Fulton Brown, a well-regarded professor at the University of Chicago who recently found herself at the center of a social-media-fueled firestorm. The story […] The post Book Review: Middle Rages appeared first on Byzantine Emporia ..read more