Abstract
Taking any modern map of the Near East and its neighbours large enough to show the whole region from the steppes of the Ukraine and southern Russia in the north to the deserts of Arabia in the south, and from the Balkans and Egypt in the west to the borders of Afghanistan in the east, six major geographical blocs will stand out: the Balkan peninsula, the steppes, the Fertile Crescent, the desert, and the plateaux of Anatolia and Iran. To understand the history of the Byzantine state and its place in the Near East it is essential to have a basic knowledge of the geography of these blocs and how they relate to each other. With so few written sources available geography becomes even more important than usual in setting the parameters to a convincing interpretation of the past.
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Bibliography
For the Balkans, Obolensky, The Byzantine Commonwealth is very helpful and clear; N. G. L. Hammond, A History of Macedonia, I (Oxford, 1972) provides useful information on the Via Egnatia that remains relevant for the middle ages.
J. Cvijič, La Peninsule Balkanique (Paris, 1918) is a classic work of descriptive geography that can be extremely useful to the medieval historian, as can the volumes of the Geographical Handbook Series (Naval Intelligence Division, London): Greece, 3 vols (1944–5); Jugoslavia, 3 vols (1944–5); Albania (1945).
For the steppes, Obolensky’s book is again a good introduction. On the nomad world, see A. M. Khazanov, Nomads and the Outside World, tr. J. Crookenden (Cambridge, 1984)
D. Sinor, ‘Horse and Pasture in Inner Asian History’, Oriens extremus, XIX (1972), 171–83
plus R. Tapper, ‘Anthropologists, Historians, and Tribespeople on Tribe and State Formation in the Middle East’, in Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East, ed. P. S. Khoury and J. Kostiner (London, 1991), pp. 48–73, which serves to caution historians too keen to apply anthropological models.
For the Near East in general, see J. M. Wagstaff, The Evolution of the Middle Eastern Landscapes (London, 1985)
and X. de Planhol, Les fondements geographiques de l’histoire de l’Islam (Paris, 1968).
On Iran and Iraq, P. Christensen, The Decline of Iranshahr (Copenhagen, 1993) is important.
For Anatolia in particular, the Geographical Handbook Series: Turkey 2 vols (London, 1942–3) is a useful source of basic geographical information about terrain, routes and climate. Also a good introduction, and one of the few on this list likely to make you laugh, is J. D. Howard-Johnston and N. Ryan, The Scholar and the Gypsy (London, 1992) — an account of travelling in Turkey in pursuit of Byzantine landscapes.
Specifically on the vexed question of relations between the bedouin and the settled population of the Fertile Crescent, for work which stresses cooperation and co-existence see: L. E. Sweet, ‘Camel Raiding of North Arabian Bedouin: A Mechanism of Ecological Adaptation’, American Anthropologist, LXVII (1965), 1132–50
D. F. Graf, ‘Rome and the Saracens: Reassessing the Nomadic Menace’, in L’Arabie préislamique et son environnement historique et culturel, ed. T. Fahd (Leiden, 1989), pp. 341–400
E. B. Banning, ‘Peasants, Pastoralists, and Pax Romana: Mutualism in the Highlands of Jordan’, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, CCLXI (1986), 25–50
Banning, ‘De Bello Paceque. A Reply to Parker’, ibid., CCLXV (1987), 52–4.
Not everyone is convinced: S. T. Parker, Romans and Saracens: A History of the Arabian Frontier (Winnona Lake, Ind., 1986)
Parker, ‘Peasants, Pastoralists, and Pax Romana: A Different View’, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, CCLXV (1987), 35–51.
W. Lancaster, The Rwala Bedouin Revisited (Cambridge, 1981) is a classic study of a bedouin tribe which helps to put the problem in perspective.
Also relevant is R. W. Bulliet, The Camel and Wheel (Cambridge, Mass., 1975) who arguably overstates his case, but the book is certainly highly readable.
For the strategic implications of the Mediterranean Sea, J. H. Pryor, Geography, Technology and War (Cambridge, 1988) is lively and important.
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© 1996 Mark Whittow
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Whittow, M. (1996). The Strategic Geography of the Near East. In: The Making of Orthodox Byzantium, 600–1025. New Studies in Medieval History. Red Globe Press, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24765-3_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24765-3_2
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