ABSTRACT
From origins in art historical discourse, the modernising tendency has been adopted in the interpretation of many other aspects of late antiquity. The trumpeting of late antique modernity could be defined as neoclassicism soaked in Christianity and ethnic pluralism. The expansionism of late antiquity has occurred peacefully, without intellectual and academic reactions, thus undercutting the old adage that centuries are the fiefdoms of professors. At the other end of the periodisation, the formulation of a 'long' antiquity, one that far outlasted the fall of the Western Roman empire, has remained closely connected throughout the twentieth century with the name of Henri Pirenne, whose role in the construction of the concept of late antiquity has frequently been underlined. With the rise of Islamist movements in the Middle East and the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the Soviet Union, historians have furthermore begun to deal with populations for whom "late antiquity has become, once again, 'contemporary history'".
