This article draws attention to an understudied phenomenon, transnational political alliances (TPA), which occur when multinational corporations cooperate with local companies to influence public policies of the host government. The article first explores the economic and political sources of TPAs, their structures, and the obstacles to their formation. It then examines TPAs in the context of China, a critical case because of the hostile political environment that discourages TPAs. However, the surprisingly common occurrence of TPAs in China indicates the power (...) of economic incentives for political cooperation yet also suggests the need for further studies of TPAs in a wide variety of economic and political settings. (shrink)

The body of almost every Roman or Byzantine emperor has been lost. This piece draws attention to two skeletons, recovered from a Muslim türbe at Trabzon during World War I by the Russian excavator Feodor Uspensky. Using local oral tradition, Uspensky identified the two bodies he recovered as the Byzantine emperor of Trebizond Alexios IV (1417-1429) and a local Turkish hero Hoşoğlan. Since Uspensky, his identifications have not been challenged nor scientifically examined. This paper argues that Uspensky did not recover (...) just one but two imperial skeletons. It first dissects his identifications, showing how competition for sacred space between Greeks and Turks in the Ottoman period led each community to identify the tomb’s occupants with foundational figures in their communities. After dissecting Uspensky’s identifications, this paper then makes the case that both occupants of this tomb were unidentified members of the Grand Komnenoi family, urging for scientific examination of what may be the only bones of a Byzantine emperor. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Byzantinische Zeitschrift Jahrgang: 111 Heft: 3 Seiten: 641-658.

It has often been said it would be impossible to write the history of the empire of Trebizond (1204-1461) without the terse and often frustratingly laconic chronicle of the Grand Komnenoi by the protonotarios of Alexios III (1349-1390), Michael Panaretos. While recent scholarship has infinitely enhanced our knowledge of the world in which Panaretos lived, it has been approximately seventy years since a scholar dedicated a historiographical study to the text. This study examines the world that Panaretos wanted posterity to (...) see, examining how his post as imperial secretary and his use of sources shaped his representation of reality, whether that reality was Trebizond’s experience of foreigners, the reign of Alexios III, or a narrative that showed the superiority of Trebizond on the international stage. Finally by scrutinizing Panaretos in this way, this paper also illuminates how modern historians of Trebizond have been led astray by the chronicler, unaware of how Panaretos selected material for inclusion for the narratives of his chronicle. (shrink)

In recent decades, historians of the Arab conquest have increasingly turned away from positivist reconstructions of the events of the Arab conquest. Through thematic analysis of conquest narratives, scholars have illustrated how the early Islamic community articulated its identity. Byzantine narratives of the Arab conquest have generally not been considered from this perspective. This paper takes the long view of the Arab conquest illustrating how centuries of Byzantine writers and chroniclers articulated and rearticulated this memory, as their identity shifted along (...) with their political and diplomatic relationships. (shrink)

The Ostrogothic king Theoderic I (a.d.475–526) drew on his experience of ruling post-imperial Italy when he famously remarked that ‘The poor Roman imitates the Goth and the rich Goth imitates the Roman’. Written well after the fall of the western Roman empire, these words have prefaced many discussions of the process of Roman and barbarian assimilation and mutual acculturation. This topic has long captured the imagination of scholars, who have approached the topic from many different angles, such as archaeology, religion, (...) prosopography and literature. (shrink)