The Expansion of Orthodox Europe: Byzantium, the Balkans and Russia. The Expansion of Latin Europe, 1000-1500 Series by Jonathan Shepard (review)

Abstract

546 SEER, 88, 3, JULY 20IO 'this author has tried to allow Rubinstein to speak for himself, adding com mentaries, where necessary, for the sake of narrative structure and clarity' (p. xxiii). In doing so,Taylor has done us an enormous service, and certainly one which Rubinstein himselfwould have admired. Wadham College,Oxford Philip Ross Bullock Shepard, Jonathan (ed.). The Expansion ofOrthodox Europe: Byzantium, the Balkans and Russia. The Expansion of Latin Europe, iooo?1500 Series. Ashgate Variorum. Aldershot and Burlington, VT, 2007. lv + 532 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Tables. Notes. Index. ?90.00. In the course of making the series, 'The Expansion of Latin Europe5, the general editors,James Muldoon and Felipe Fern?ndez-Armesto, realized that the spread of institutionsacross themedieval continent was not just thework of Frankish rulers,migrants and missionaries, but was matched by strong cultural and other influences coming from Byzantium. In short, the gist of Robert Barde tt5 sTheMaking of Europe: Conquest,Colonization and Cultural Change, 950-1350 (London, 1993) had necessarily to be qualified by that of Dmitri Obolensky's Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe, 500-1453 (London, 1971). Both the Frankish west and Byzantium generated today's Europe and are at least stillpartly responsible for some of its divisions. The present collection recalls Eastern Europe's Byzantine inheritance. The volume reproduces twenty-two essays on the history of Byzantium and of its influence within Eastern Europe and is prefaced by a lengthy introduction by the editor. One may cavil at the selection. There are two contributions on wine and olive oil exports from Byzantium toKievan Rus', but Obolensky's important article, 'Byzantium, Kiev and Moscow: A Study of Ecclesiastical Relations' (Dumbarton Oah Papers, 11, 1957,pp. 23?78), is omitted; likewiseGeorge Ostrogorsky's 'The Byzantine Emperor and theHierarchical World Order' (Slavonic and East European Review, 35, 1956?57, pp. 1-14). Nevertheless, many valuable articles are included here, most notably those of Robert Lee Wolff, Sima Cirkovic and David Jacoby, which cannot be found easily online or even in library stacks. UCL SSEES Martyn Rady Hoare, Marko Attila. TheHistory of Bosnia: From the Middle Ages tothe Present Day. Saqi Books, London, Berkeley, CA and Beirut, 2007. 510 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. ?35.00; ?19.99. This is a crisplywritten and well-documented history of Bosnia as a state and administrative unit and how its changing existence shaped the oudook of its Bosniak (Muslim), Serbian and Croat inhabitants. Hoare describes a place where identity was fluid and still remains ca work inprogress'. His focus is on historical episodes when questions of identitywere sharply posed as a result of internal conflict. ...