Illuminated manuscripts and illustrated or decorated books - like today's museums - preserve a rich array of information about how premodern peoples conceived of and perceived the world, its many cultures and everyone's place in it. Often a Eurocentric field of study, manuscripts are prisms through which we can glimpse the interconnected global history of humanity. 'Toward a Global Middle Ages: Encountering the World through Illuminated Manuscripts' is the first publication to examine decorated books produced across the globe during the period traditionally known as medieval. Through essays and case studies, the volume's multidisciplinary contributors expand the historiography, chronology, and geography of manuscript studies to embrace a diversity of objects, individuals, narratives and materials from Africa, Asia, Australasia and the Americas - an approach that both engages with and contributes to the emerging field of scholarly inquiry known as the Global Middle Ages. Featuring over 160 colour illustrations, this wide-ranging and provocative collection is intended for all who are interested in engaging in a dialogue about how books and other textual objects contributed to world-making strategies from about 400 to 1600.

About the Author
Bryan C. Keene (he/el/they/elle) is assistant professor of art history at Riverside City College and a former associate curator of manuscripts at the J. Paul Getty Museum. He specializes in codex cultures of a global Middle Ages and fantasy medievalisms.


Book Information
ISBN 9781606065983
Author Bryan C. Keene
Format Paperback
Page Count 296
Imprint Getty Publications
Publisher Getty Trust Publications
Weight(grams) 666g
Dimensions(mm) 250mm * 150mm * 15mm