History Prof. Shane Bjornlie's first book, Politics and Tradition Between Rome, Ravenna and Constantinople (Cambridge University Press, 2013) has received the First Book Award for 2016 from the Classical Association of the Midwest and South.
Prof. Bjornlie is a historian of the Roman Mediterranean and Europe. His research examines the period known as Late Antiquity, with overlap in the study of the High Roman Empire and the Early Middle Ages. His primary historical interest is in the political, economic and cultural end of the Roman Empire in the western Mediterranean and Europe and in the ways that the end of the Roman Empire registered in the political, intellectual and religious lives of communities and individuals.
The association's First Book Award recognizes distinguished first scholarly books (or digital equivalents) in the field of classical studies (including, but not limited to, the languages, literatures, history, religions, philosophy, art, architecture, archaeology, economy, and reception of Greek and Roman antiquity). According to its website, the association is primarily interested in a work that "shifts the conversation substantially."
The Classical Association of the Middle West and South is an organization for Classics (Latin and Greek) teachers at all levels, undergraduate and graduate students, and anyone else who enjoys learning about the world of classical antiquity.