Averil Cameron was until recently Professor of Late Antique and Byzantine History at the University of Oxford and Warden of Keble College Oxford.

This book provides both a detailed introduction to the vivid and exciting period of `late antiquity' and a direct challenge to conventional views of the end of the Empire.

Introduction 1. Constantinople and the eastern empire 2. The empire and the barbarians 3. Christianization and its challenges 4. Late Roman society and economy 5. Justinian and reconquest 6. Late antique culture and private life 7. Urban change and the late antique countryside 8. The eastern Mediterranean - a region in ferment 9. A changed world Conclusion