Angeliki Laiou (1941-2008), one of the leading Byzantinists of her generation, broke new ground in the study of the social and economic history of the Byzantine Empire. Economic Thought and Economic Life in Byzantium, the last of three volumes to be published posthumously in the Variorum Collected Studies Series. 'Reading these studies, most for the second time, reminded me of the clarity and precision of Laiou's thought and writing style. Yes, there is some repetition here and some unevenness, but overall the collection does lay out most of the major problems that face contemporary studies of the Byzantine economy.' Speculum