Synopses & Reviews
The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium is a three-volume, comprehensive dictionary of Byzantine civilization. The first resource of its kind in the field, it features over 5,000 entries written by an international group of eminent Byzantinists covering all aspects of life in the Byzantine world. According to Alexander Kazhdan, editor-in-chief of the
Dictionary: "Entries on patriarchy and emperors will coexist with entries on surgery and musical instruments. An entry on the cultivation of grain will not only be connected to entries on agriculture and its economics but on diet, the baking of bread, and the role of bread in this changing society."
Major entries treat such topics as agriculture, art, literature, and politics, while shorter entries examine topics that relate to Byzantium such as the history of Kiev and personalities of ancient and biblical history. Each article is followed by a bibliography, and numerous maps, tables, architectural designs, and genealogies reinforce and clarify the text.
The new Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium will be the standard research tool and reference work for Byzantinists from graduate students to advanced scholars, and an essential resource for college and school libraries. It will also be an invaluable guide for classicists, Western medievalists, Islamicists, Slavicists, art historians, religious historians, and scholars of archaeology.
Review
"This reference work is a major event for Byzantine studies....This is a remarkable accomplishment, one that both specialists and the educated public will find useful."--Speculum
"An indispensable reference tool for Byzantinists and Western medievalists, as well as an authoritative source for the more casual reader."--Religious Studies Review
"A landmark achievement that has no peer....Can be recommended wholeheartedly as an indispensable reference work of great worth."--Missiology
"The editor deserves special thanks for the uniformly lucid and readable style, for the clear illustrations, and for the useful maps....This will endure as the first book the beginning student or the advanced scholar will reach for on the 1100-year history of Byzantium. Academic, large public, and research libraries must acquire this treasure."--Library Journal
"The student of religion and the theologian will find much of interest throughout these three tomes."--Theological Studies
"A necessary addition for college and university libraries at all levels."--Choice
"A magnificent project and will prove to be one of the most significant scholarly resources in the last quarter of the 20th century."--Review and Expositor
"Throughout there is a welcome attention to realia and to daily life....The ODB now joins the OCD and the ODCC as an essential reference work for every academic or public library."--Religious Studies Review
"No respectable library can afford to forgo the immediate purchase of the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, because it will be cited throughout the world, as the scholarly reference on all matters Byzantine."--Biblical Archaeology Review
"Satisfies a long-felt need for a comprehensive reference work on the Eastern empire....There is no other reference work that covers the Byzantine world as thoroughly as the ODB....An essential purchase for academic collections supporting curricula in art history or medieval studies."--RBB/Booklist