The Byzantine Empire supported its power and longevity through an economy with interesting and often complex structures. Although there have been many studies on various aspects of the Byzantine economy, until now there has been a lack of a synthetic work that examines the economy of Byzantium as a whole and provides a comprehensive picture of its structures, organization, and evolution over time.

This gap aspires to be filled by "The Economic History of Byzantium," a collective work that brings together and synthesizes findings from the fields of economic history, numismatics, archaeology, geography/geology, art history, institutions, and law regarding the Byzantine medieval period from the 7th to the 15th century.

The authors of this work examine, among other things, demographic factors, the natural and technological conditions of production, productive resources, the structures and organization of production in the agricultural economy and urban economy, the economic role of the state and fiscal phenomena, consumption, investments and credit mechanisms, prices, methods of exchange, internal and external trade, the production and circulation of coins, institutions of property and transactions, aspects of practical economic law, economic ideology, and the position of the Byzantine economy in the medieval Mediterranean world.

Their analyses challenge the image of an economy with archaic structures, controlled and managed monopolistically by the state authority and not evolving. On the contrary, they converge on the conclusion that the Byzantine economy demonstrated remarkable adaptability at times, and for long periods, the combination of state and private activity operated effectively, ensuring both economic progress and stability.

The texts included are:

• Bernard Geyer, "Natural Factors in the Evolution of Landscapes and Land Uses"
• Angeliki E. Laiou, "The Living Potential"
• Anna Avramea, "Land and Maritime Communications (4th-15th Century)"
• George Makris, "Ships"
• Anthony Bryer, "Means of Agricultural Production: Muscle Power and Tools."
• Klauss-Peter Matschke, "Mining"
• Marou K. Papathanasiou, "Metallurgy and Metalworking"
• Jean-Pierre Sodini, "The Use of Marble and Stone (7th-15th Century)"
• Anna Muthesius, "The Production of Silk Fabrics: Methods, Tools, Technical Aspects"
• Cecile Morrisson, Jean-Pierre Sodini, "The Sixth Century"
• James Russell, "Anemourion"
• Jacque Lefort, "The Agricultural Economy (7th-12th Century)"
• Angeliki E. Laiou, "The Agricultural Economy (13th-15th Century)"
• Pierre Toubert, "Byzantium and Mediterranean Agricultural Civilization"