JOHN HALDON is a professor of history at Princeton University. He studied in the UK, Greece and Germany, and is a Senior Fellow at the Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies in Washington D.C. His research focuses on the history of the early and middle Byzantine empire, in particular in the period from the seventh to the eleventh centuries; on state systems and structures across the European and Islamic worlds from late ancient to early modern times; and on the production, distribution and consumption of resources in the late ancient and medieval world, especially in the context of warfare. His publications include Byzantium in the Seventh Century (CUP: 1990/1997), Three Treatises on Byzantine Imperial Military Expeditions (Austrian Academy: 1990), The State and the Tributary Mode of Production (Verso: 1993), Warfare, State and Society in Byzantium (Macmillan 1999), Byzantium: a History (Tempus: 2000) and The Social History of Byzantium (Blackwell 2009).

The dominant Mediterranean power in the fifth and sixth centuries, by the time of its demise at the hands of the Ottomans in 1453 the Byzantine empire was a shadow of its former self restricted essentially to the city of Constantinople, modern Istanbul. Surrounded by foes who posed a constant threat to its very existence, it survived because of its administration, army and the strength of its culture, of which Orthodox Christianity was a key element. This historical atlas charts key aspects of the political, social and economic history of a medieval empire which bridged the Christian and Islamic worlds from the late Roman period into the late Middle Ages.