In A. D. 945, eleven days after receiving his title from the ruling Abbasid Caliph al-Mustakfi, the Buwayhid amir Mu

izz al-Dawla deposed him. Like the green dome of the palace of Abu Ja

far Mansur that had crumbled during the spring rains of 939, the Abbasid caliphate was collapsing inward. Not until the turn of the next century, with the loosening of the hold of the Buwayhid amirs on Baghdad, did a caliph make guarded efforts to assert his divinely sanctioned authority outside his sacred precinct. By that time, beyond the walls of the caliphal palace, monumental changes in the structure of power had long since occurred.

It is difficult to remember that the political realities of the Buwayhid dynasty, which seemed hewn from marble at the end of the 10th century, were but the ambitions of a family of war-weary soldiers from the Caspian region seventy years prior. John J. Donohue, in his fine study The Buwayhid Dynasty in Iraq 334H./945 to 403H./1012, ably depicts the circumstances under which the main political and social institutions of Buwayhid rule took shape in Baghdad and what form they provided for the succeeding decades and centuries. As in the making of many of history's most durable constructs, accident and accommodation proved a surer bond than human will.

The majority of Donohue's book is devoted to the institutions of the amirate and the vizierate (190 pages), with five smaller chapters devoted to the army, provincial government, land administration, the caliphate, and religio-political institutions (i.e., judges, syndics, and witnesses). A final chapter addresses social organization in the period. Each of the chapters can be read independently as a separate study of the development of a particular institution. Together, they provide the reader with a sense of the great transformations that occurred in the politics and society of the Abbasid state during the first seventy years of Buwayhid rule.

Similar to Heribert Busse's important survey of the entire Buwayhid period in Iraq, Chalif und Grosskönig: Die Buyiden im Iraq (945–1055) (Beirut: Franz Steiner, 1969), Donohue's study is fundamentally concerned with the political and economic consequences of the Buwayhid amirs' assumption of military and economic control in Baghdad. The shorter time frame of Donohue's work allows him to directly assess the effects of this major change during the first three generations of Buwayhid rule and the causes of the dynasty's decline in the 5th century.

In contrast to the oft-told story of the Buwayhid amirs' willful manipulation of the Abbasid caliphate, the author demonstrates that “tradition, public sentiment, and the requirements of legitimation prevented the office of the caliph from being overshadowed completely by the amir who had usurped the military and financial administration of the capital” (p. 125). To be sure, the Buwayhid amirs of Baghdad applied their influence over the Abbasid caliphs in their dynastic struggles with the other Buwayhid amirs of Rayy and Shiraz, as well as in diplomatic relations with foreign rulers. Yet it was the amirs' adherence to Abbasid tradition that limited their range of power by providing a check on many of their actions. While the Buwayhid amirs drained the caliphate of its military and economic power, the vessels of Abbasid protocol remained intact.

As the subsequent chapters of Donohue's book well illustrate, the language and traditions of the Abbasid state often proved difficult to reconcile with the new shape of Buwayhid rule. The once powerful office of the Abbasid vizier in Baghdad became subject to the command of the amir. The centralized administration of the Abbasid caliphate was dismantled, and many regions were placed into the hands of military lords as fiefs (iqṭā

āt). Leaders of the army had a more prominent role in the conduct of state affairs. Although the language of power remained the same, there were many signs that a new age had come.

The Buwayhid Dynasty in Iraq 334H./945 to 403H./1012 is a carefully researched and clearly written study. The author skillfully moves among the evidence provided by chronicles, official correspondence, biographical literature, and numismatics. Given the late and polemical nature of some of the sources, Donohue does a good job sorting through the authors' various biases. While the book focuses mainly on the administrative structures of the period, scholars interested in the literary and intellectual life of the Buwayhid period can find much in Donohue's study worthy of their attention. Like all serious pieces of scholarship, Donohue's book reminds us of the many traditional areas of research still unfinished or unconsidered. It merits serious scholarly attention.