Hello everyone and welcome to the history of Byzantium. Episode 130, the Empire that would

not die with John Halden. Thanks so much to all of you who bought

last week's fundraising episode. Today we're going to pause the narrative and look back

to the past. Specifically to the period 640 AD to 740 because that's the subject of a new book by John

Halden. I've mentioned the authors who I rely on most in putting the podcast together, Warren

Tredgold, Mark Widow, and Tenequil Delis. But more prolific than any is John Halden. He was our

guide throughout the period of transformation from Heraclius to Leo III as well as to the whole

period of iconoclasm. He was the man behind the modern attempts to create Greek fire as well as the

source of much of my information on the army, specific battles, life in the borderlands, and many social issues.

Even some of the maps I've posted on the website and social media come from John Halden. John is a

professor of European history as well as of Byzantine history and Hellenic studies. He currently works

at Princeton University. He is the director of two projects which concern us, the PIIRS Climate Change

and History Research Initiative, which is working towards understanding the impact of climate on

societies across Eurasia, and the AFCAT Archaeological Project which is carrying out surveys in North

Central Turkey. The book he's just written is called The Empire That Would Not Die, the paradox of

Eastern Roman survival 640-740. This is in a way a follow-up to a book he wrote 20 years ago about

the 7th century and the transformation which the Empire went through. In this new book he explores

some ideas that you're very familiar with, the geography of Anatolia, the service aristocracy that

developed keeping the elites dependent on the court, the creation of the theme armies.

But he also goes deeper, looking at the psychological, the spiritual, and the environmental.

Part of the reason for the interview was to touch on those environmental sources that are now

available to us. As you'll hear in one amazing study the landscape can tell us what written history

...