John Haldon

John F. Haldon
Born	Northumberland, England, UK
Occupation	Professor
Academic background
Education	University of Birmingham (BA) Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (MA) University of Birmingham (PhD)
Academic work
Discipline	Byzantine History, Archaeology

John F. Haldon is a British historian, and Shelby Cullom Davis '30 Professor of European History emeritus, professor of Byzantine history and Hellenic Studies emeritus, as well as former director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies at Princeton University.

Early life and education

Haldon is from Northumberland, UK. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, his master's degree from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany, and his PhD from the University of Birmingham, in the UK. Haldon also studied Modern Greek at the University of Athens. He initially wanted to study Roman-British history and work on post-Roman Britain, but eventually changed his field of study.

Career

From 1980 to 1995, he was junior professor at the University of Birmingham. From 1995 to 2000, he was director of the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies at the University of Birmingham. From 2000 to 2005, Haldon served as head of the School of Historical Studies at the University of Birmingham. He was a senior fellow at the Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, Washington, DC from 2007 to 2013 and was professor of Byzantine history and Hellenic studies at Princeton University since from 2005 to 2018. Haldon also served as the Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of European History at Princeton since 2009 and the director of graduate studies for the Princeton History Department from 2009 to 2018. From 2013 to 2018 he was founding director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies. From 2013 he has been director of the Princeton Climate Change and History Research Initiative, and since 2018 director of the Environmental History Lab for the Program i Medieval Studies. He is the author and co-author of over 25 books, including The De Thematibus (‘on the themes’) of Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. Translated with introductory chapters and detailed notes,The empire that would not die: The paradox of eastern Roman survival, 640 – 740, A tale of two saints: the passions and miracles of Sts Theodore 'the recruit' and 'the general', A Critical Commentary on the Taktika of Leo VI and Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era: A History, with Leslie Brubaker.

His research focuses on the history of the medieval eastern Roman (Byzantine) empire, in particular in the period from the seventh to the twelfth centuries; on state systems and structures across the European and Islamic worlds from late ancient to early modern times; on the impact of environmental stress on societal resilience in premodern social systems; and on the production, distribution and consumption of resources in the late ancient and medieval world.

Awards and honors

• Fellow of the British Academy
• Member, Archaeological Institute of America
• Member, British Institute at Ankara
• President of the Association Internationale des Etudes Byzantines
• Corresponding Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna

Selected Bibliography

Books (author)

• Recruitment and Conscription in the Byzantine Army c. 550-950: A Study on the Origins of the Stratiotika, Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Vienna, Austria), 1979.
• Byzantine Praetorians: An Administrative, Institutional, and Social Survey of the Opsikion and Tagmata, c. 580-900, R. Habelt (Bonn, Germany), 1984.
• (Translator, and author of introduction and commentary) Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, Three Treatises on Imperial Military Expeditions, Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Vienna, Austria), 1990.
• Byzantium in the Seventh Century: The Transformation of a Culture, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1990.
• The State and the Tributary Mode of Production, Verso (New York, NY), 1993.
• State, Army, and Society in Byzantium: Approaches to Military, Social, and Administrative History, 6th-12th Centuries, Variorum (Brookfield, VT), 1995.
• Contributor to Virgil S. Crisafulli and John W. Nesbitt, editors, The Miracles of St. Artemio: A Collection of Miracle Stories by an Anonymous Author of Seventh-Century Byzantium, E. J. Brill (New York, NY), 1997.
• Warfare, State, and Society in the Byzantine World, 565-1204, UCL Press (London, England), 1999.
• Byzantium: A History, Tempus Publishing (London, England), 2000.
• (With Leslie Brubaker) Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era (c. 680–850): The Sources: An Annotated Survey, Ashgate (Burlington, VT), 2001.
• The Byzantine Wars: Battles and Campaigns of the Byzantine Era, Tempus Publishing (London, England), 2001.
• Byzantium at War, Osprey (London, England), 2002.
• The Byzantine Wars, The History Press, (Stroud, Gloucestershire, England), 2008.
• Editor (With Elizabeth Jeffreys and Robin Cormack), The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies, Oxford University Press (New York, New York), 2008.
• Editor, The Social History of Byzantium, Wiley, 2009.
• The Palgrave Atlas of Byzantine history, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
• A Critical Commentary on the Taktika of Leo VI, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2014.
• The Empire That Would Not Die: The Paradox of Eastern Roman Survival, 640-740, Harvard University Press, 2016.
• A tale of two saints: the passions and miracles of Sts Theodore 'the recruit' and 'the general'
• Editor (With Hugh Elton and James Newhard), Archaeology and Urban Settlement in Late Roman and Byzantine Anatolia Euchaïta-Avkat-Beyözü and Its Environment, Cambridge University Press, 2018.
• The De Thematibus (‘on the themes’) of Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. Translated with introductory chapters and detailed notes, Liverpool UP, 2021