Time to say goodbye? Some thoughts on Georg Ostrogorsky's <i>History of the Byzantine State</i> in the twenty-first century

Jubilees are good to think with, obviously. They provide a fitting opportunity to look back, to take stock, and to offer some thoughts about the future. As a scholar working on Byzantine history (and only slightly older than BMGS at that) I recognize that the state of the field has changed immensely in the last fifty years. First, there was a major expansion in departments and programmes dedicated to Byzantine studies, followed more recently by a contraction. And yet, even while Byzantine studies are offered in fewer academic institutions, there is an immense proliferation of academic research and publications on the Byzantine Empire – trend accelerating. Exact numbers may be hard to come by, but a quick search on WorldCat for books published in 2023 with the word ‘Byzantine’ in the title brought forth almost two hundred books – in English alone. If we add journal articles (there are over twenty major journals devoted solely to Byzantine studies), chapters in edited volumes, and, especially publications in languages other than English, we would probably reach the low thousands, all in one year. To survey, much less to read with care and absorb all this new knowledge, has become impossible. How handy would it be if someone else took over this task for us – processing research and synthesizing it in a clear, concise and readable volume. It is highly doubtful that such a book could be produced today, but there is a work that fulfilled these functions for a very long time, one of the most cited and recommended textbooks in Byzantine history, Georg Ostrogorsky's History of the Byzantine State .