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Apr 27, 2026
War and Community in Late Antiquity
Summary
Susanna Elm and Kristina Sessa, War and Community in Late Antiquity (Cambridge UP, 2026)
Late Antiquity (ca. 250–600 CE) was a world at war: barbarian migrations, civil wars, raids, and increasingly porous frontiers affected millions of its inhabitants. While military and political historians have long grappled with this history, scholars of late antique society and culture rarely interrogate the consequences of near constant warfare on civilian populations, fighting forces, and the built environment. War and Community in Late Antiquity responds to this oversight by assembling archeologists, art historians, social historians, and scholars of religion to examine the impact of war on communities (households, cities, religious groups, elites and non-elites) and their reactions to ongoing stressors. Topics include the violence of everyday life as backdrop to that of war; the rhetoric of warfare and its significance for Christian authors; the effects of captivity and billeting on households; communal agency and the fortification of civilian spaces; and the challenges of articulating Christian imperial power in wartime.
New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review
Susanna Elm She is the Sidney H. Ehrman Professor of European History at the Department of History at the University of California, Berkeley.
Kristina Sessa is Professor of History at The Ohio State University
Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston
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Michael Motia
Michael Motia teaches in Religious Studies and Classics at UMass Boston.
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