James Howard-Johnston

James Douglas Howard-Johnston (born March 12, 1942 ) is an English historian.

Howard-Johnston is married to the novelist Angela Huth and they have one daughter. Howard-Johnston belongs to the English upper class ( peerage ): He is the grandson of the British Field Marshal Douglas Haig , the Commander in Chief of the British Army in World War I ; his father was the Rear Admiral Clarence Dinsmore Howard-Johnston (1903-1996). In 1954 his mother, Lady Alexandra Henrietta Louisa Haig (1907-1997), married the famous historian Hugh Trevor-Roper , Baron Dacre of Glanton, who became his stepfather.

Howard-Johnston (Emeritus) Fellow of Corpus Christi College of Oxford University and was from 1971 until his retirement in 2009 professor of Byzantine Studies . His main research interests are late antiquity and the Byzantine period , for which he is considered an internationally recognized expert. Howard-Johnston has dealt intensively with the relations between the East / Byzantium and the Sassanid Empire , with the upheavals in the eastern Mediterranean in the 7th century and with contemporary historiography. While for a long time he was only able to publish little for health reasons, he has stood out since the 1990s with a series of highly acclaimed works. In addition to several important articles, he published a comprehensive study on the "world crisis" of the 7th century in 2010, in which he extensively examines the relevant sources and provides a historical overview based on them, re-dating several events (such as the death of ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālib to the year 658 instead of 661) or interpreted differently.

In 2016 he gave the Lees Knowles Lectures in Cambridge.

Publications (selection)

• Studies in the organization of the Byzantine army in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Oxford 1971, (Oxford, University of Oxford, dissertation 1971).
• as editor with Paul Antony Hayward: The cult of saints in late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Essays on the contribution of Peter Brown. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 1999, ISBN 0-19-826978-1 .
• with Robert W. Thomson: The Armenian History attributed to Sebeos (= Translated Texts for Historians . Vol. 31). 2 volumes (Vol. 1: Translation and Notes. Vol. 2: Historical Commentary. ). Translated, with Notes. Liverpool University Press, Liverpool 1999, ISBN 0-85323-564-3 (Historical commentary by Howard-Johnston).
• East Rome, Sasanian Persia and the End of Antiquity. Historiographical and historical Studies (= Variorum Collected Studies Series. Vol. 848). Ashgate, Aldershot et al. 2006, ISBN 0-86078-992-6 (collection of articles).
• Witnesses to a World Crisis. Historians and Histories of the Middle East in the Seventh Century. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 2010, ISBN 978-0-19-920859-3 ( review in Bryn Mawr Classical Review ; review in Sehepunkte ).
• Historical Writing in Byzantium. Verlag Antike, Heidelberg 2014, ISBN 978-3-938032-72-5 .

Web links

• Homepage at Oxford University