Acknowledgements
My research into the “long 6th century” in Eastern Europe began more than a decade ago as I taught a graduate seminar on economy and society in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages at the University of Florida. I would like to thank the students for helping me understand how incorporating the evidence of Eastern Europe (both inside and outside the Empire) could drastically change the conclusions reached by most historians whose works we read in that class. I also owe thanks to Alan Stahl (Princeton University) and Lee Mordechai (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) for inviting me to the FLAME project (Framing the Late Antique and early Medieval Economy), the purpose of which is to reconstruct the economy of Western Afro-Eurasia between 325 and 725 on the basis of an enormous number of coin finds. Participation in the first FLAME conference (Princeton University, April 2016) and in a FLAME session organized for the 53rd International Congress son Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo (May 2018) provided many ideas about how to cast my arguments more meaningfully.
Over the years, at other scholarly gatherings or during short visits to Europe, I had the good fortune to discuss various aspects of this study with a number of historians and archaeologists working on the same or similar topics. Among them I should especially cite Audronė Bliujienė, Ádám Bollók, Jaroslav Jiřík, Ioan C. Opriș, Andrew Poulter, Alexander Sarantis, and Tivadar Vida. The book is unquestionably better for the comments and criticisms I have received from scholars who read chapters or served as interlocutors in discussions about my research. In particular, I would like to thank my former student, Andrei Gândilă for encouragement and insights. Many thanks to Francesco dall’Aglio, Danijel Dzino, and Andrei Soficaru for taking the time to read various sections of the manuscript. Some of those scholars disagree with my interpretations, and many gave me good advice that I did not heed, and to them, I offer particular thanks for their forbearance.
My greatest debt remains always to Lucia, the light of my life.