Iconoclasm, the debate about the legitimacy of religious art in Byzantium during the eighth and early ninth centuries, has long gripped the historical imagination. This book reinterprets the history of the period, challenges many traditional assumptions about iconoclasm, and sets it firmly in its broader political, cultural and social-economic context. 188421443 'This is the most important book on Byzantium to appear in my lifetime. The authors admirably fulfil their stated intention to discuss political recovery and institutional reshaping, the final stages in the evolution of eastern Orthodox dogma, the emergence of a new political and social elite, the transformation of urban life and also urban-rural relations, and the generation of a new 'medieval' perspective on the past.' Thomas F. X. Noble, Journal of Interdisciplinary History