Étienne de la Vaissière

Étienne de La Vaissière (born 5 November 1969 in Dijon) is a French historian, professor at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, in Paris. He teaches the economic and social history of early medieval Central Asia, before and after the arrival of Islam. He is a specialist in Sogdian culture, its traders and nobility, and also in the nomadic invasions of the fourth and fifth centuries. Some of his theories are:

  • a depiction of the network which gave to the image of "Silk Road" its only historical reality during the Early Middle Ages
  • the textual proof that the Huns and the Xiongnu are indeed synonymous
  • a shift of two centuries in the history of Eastern Manichaeism (it arrived in China in the 6th century)
  • a reinterpretation of Abbasid 9th century political history pushing the birth of the mamluk phenomenon to the 860s-870s

He contributed to the expedition that led to the decipherment of the inscription of Hüis Tolgoi.

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