Description: During the period 500-1000 CE Egypt was successively part of the Byzantine, Persian and Islamic empires. All kinds of events, developments and processes occurred that would greatly affect its history and that of the eastern Mediterranean in general. This is the first volume to map Egypt's position in the Mediterranean during this period. Drawing on a wide range of disciplines, the individual chapters detail its connections with imperial and scholarly centres, its role in cross-regional trade networks, and its participation in Mediterranean and Near Eastern cultural developments, including their impact on its own literary and material production. With unparalleled detail, the book tracks the mechanisms and structures through which Egypt connected politically, economically and culturally to the world surrounding it.
Brief description: Jelle Bruning is a University Lecturer in Middle Eastern Studies at Leiden University. He is the author of The Rise of a Capital: Al-Fusṭāṭ and Its Hinterland, 18/639-132/750 (2018).
Review Quotes: '... provides a very good insight into the interconnectedness of Egypt in the Eastern Mediterranean region over a long period of time.' H-Soz-Kult