Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire

A most excellent book. Before reading it, there was a great gap in my knowledge. This book filled that gap. If you want to understand modern Turkey and the Balkans, if you need to know the long history of their foundation, this book is essential reading. In contrast to most history books, this one has a good collection of maps, timelines, and color plates

Because the Byzantine Empire lasted 1,129 years (from Constantine's founding of Constantinople in 324 AD to Sultan Mehmet II's capture of the city in 1453), the historian writing about the empire faces a daunting task. Write about it in the traditional chronological manner, and space limitations will force a laundry list approach with little meaningful content.What Judith Herrin (a professor of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies at King's College, London) has elected to do instead is to break the subject down into 28 topics under 4 general subject headings and then deal with each topic chronologically:I. FOUNDATIONS OF BYZANTIUM 1. The City of Constantine 2. Constantinople, the Largest City in Christendom 3. The East Roman Empire 4. Greek Orthodoxy 5. The Church of Hagia Sophia 6. The Ravenna Mosaics 7. Roman LawII. THE TRANSITION FROM ANCIENT TO MEDIEVAL 8. The Bulwark Against Islam 9. Icons, a New Christian Art Form 10. Iconclasm and Icon Veneration 11. A Literate and Articulate Society 12. Saints Cyril and Methodios, `Apostles to the Slavs'III BYZANTIUM BECOMES A MEDIEVAL STATE 13. Greek Fire 14. The Byzantine Economy 15. Eunuchs 16. The Imperial Court 17. Imperial Children, `Born in the Purple' 18. Mount Athos 19. Venice and the Fork 20. Basil II, `The Bulgar-Slayer' 21. Eleventh Century Crisis 22. Anna Komene 23. A Cosmopolitan SocietyIV VARIETIES OF BYZANTIUM 24. The Fulcrum of the Crusades 25. The Towers of Trebizond, Arta, Nicaea and Thessalonike 26. Rebels and Patrons 27. `Better the Turkish Turban than the Papal Tiara' 28. The Siege of 1453 Conclusion: The Greatness and Legacy of ByzantiumThe core of the book consists of 333 pages, which means that each topic is limited to an average of 12 pages. As a result, the writing is information-dense, slowing the reader's progress. Additionally, the author's writing style is academic (i.e., somewhat tedious), although the shortness of the chapters makes reading the book manageable.There are 41 photographs of varying quality, many in black and white. They appear to have been chosen haphazardly. NOTE: A good source of high quality reproductions of Eastern Orthodox religious icons is  Holy Image, Hallowed Ground (Getty Trust Publications: J. Paul Getty Museum) .As the above discussion suggests, this is a book that will primarily interest an academic reader. Those interested in a more comfortable approach may wish to consider Kenneth Harl's excellent course for the Teaching Company Great Courses World of Byzantium Parts 1 and 2 (365 and 366) (Teaching Company) UPDATE [04-06-2011]: Ms. Herrin wrote an essay, "The Glories of Byzantium," which appeared in the Saturday/Sunday March 12-13, 2011 edition of the Wall Street Journal, in which she recommended some recent books on Byzantium:1. Re the military reasons for Byzantium's long survival,  Warfare, State And Society In The Byzantine World 565-1204 (Warfare and History) 2. Same,  The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire 3. Re Byzantium's historical significance,  Empires and Barbarians  and  After Tamerlane: The Global History of Empire Since 1405 4. Re the end of the Empire:  The End of Byzantium She pays the traditional academic obeisance to Sir Steven Runciman's books, describing them as "well-researched and elegantly phrased books." Well researched, definitely. But elegantly phrased? I think not; they suffer from the same stylistic problems that plague the work of Ms. Herrin and other academics.Somewhat surprisingly, or perhaps not so since he is a competitor, she fails to mention John Julius Norwich's eminently readable three volume history  Byzantium: The Early Centuries , Byzantium (II): The Apogee , and  Byzantium: The Decline and Fall . For those not up to that amount of reading, there is a shorter version "A Short History of Byzantium." Both the research and the writing are superb.An upscale cruise line, Voyages to Antiquity, retained Norwich to provide historical background for its catalogs and to lead a trip or two a year. The catalogs are masterpieces in and of themselves.

This book very much lives up to the promise of its subtitle: "The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire". It is a book with a point of view: Herrin believes that Western historians have too often had a dismissive attitude toward the accomplishments of the Byzantines or filed too many things under "Byzantine," meaning endless plotting and counter-plotting to gain power. (Yes, the Byzantines did repeatedly have succession problems, but many of their accomplishments stand well apart from political struggles.)The approach of this study is generally historical, ranging from the successes of Constantine in 324 to the "fall" of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, though it is not a systematic and chronologically organized formal history. Rather, Herrin organizes her material topically (Byzantine theology, education, architecture, iconography, military matters, and so on). This approach works well, allowing her to show that the Byzantine Empire was a coherent, substantial, and long-running civilization; of course, there were ups and downs over 1100 years, but core values remained surprisingly stable. (A little too often Herrin points to the relative instabilities of Western Europe by way of contrast.)For the non-specialist reader (me) there are here a lot of new names--generals, churchmen, leaders and reformers-- and new places (a very ample empire), but I wasn't reading for such details and could understand the general picture emerging without them. Herrin closes with a suggestion that is genuinely thought-provoking: One of the less noticed accomplishments of the Byzantine Empire was to hold off Islamic invaders from further East and South while the princelings and warlords of Western Europe slowly consolidated their various nation-states -- so, in a sense, Byzantium might deserve some credit for the rise of Europe after 1453 when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks.

This book was recommended by the tour company I am using for a trip to Turkey. Wanted used and got what I would consider a new book. Minimal creasing on the spine and no marks on the interior. Super happy with the book and the service

Judith Herrin is a gift to anyone interested in learning about the less well known "Eastern Roman Empire". Her writing style is narrative. It is packed with interesting facts but packaged into a page turner. This is by far my favorite book on the subject (her Women in Purple is perhaps even better, though more narrowly focused). This book is academically rigorous, yet readable to the general audience (me). Some of the other non-academic books on the subject read more like a string of bios of the emperors. I highly recommend this book. Will probably read it again (and again). Thanks Judith!

The worst book I've read about the Eastern Roman Empire so far. Inconsistent quality. Some chapters are out of place. The author, being a woman, puts extensive focus on female history of the empire and never forgets to mention a single woman who managed to do something at the expense of more important overall historical information. There are blank parts of historical eras within the empire that are not being sufficiently addressed and then the author delves deep into Thessalonike zealots in details which are completely unnecessary and confusing for ordinary reader. Not to mention the book is at times hard to understand due to weird sentence composition. You can still salvage some important and interesting information but I would not suggest buying this book. You can buy used one pretty cheap, but for the full price there are better books available.

This would be a good introduction to the topic. It is a nice book overflowing with fascinating facts that gives you an overview of interesting aspects of the Byzantine empire. However note that it is not a chronological account of the often arcane history and imperial successions. The chapters are organised into very interesting, informative subject topic on culture and society. I can appreciate the approach as you either give a somewhat dry chronological summary of the main events but then to span a thousand years would be a challenge to cover in one book. And it has been done before. Or you delve into to some of the important aspects of the empire and it’s culture. Having said that it would have been helpful if a timeline, outline of events and a small map with size of the empire at that stage, was presented at each start of a chapter to set the framework. Also the choice of topics differ, some was of much inter to me others less some and then the dense somewhat scholarly text gets a bit tedious. But then again its almost like a Lonely Planet for Byzantium, you can read about a certain topic and then put it aside. Topics like literature, currency, court-life, Greek philosophy and law, and bureaucracy are covered. A few threads through out the book are the influence of intellectual women and the influence of Byzantium on European history.There is an average selection of maps and a good amount of pictures, as usual grouped together in three sections of glossy paper. Personally I can’t stand that. I know there is a a cost-angle. But I would gladly pay up for a book like this that has clear, colour pictures on the pages as a reference to with is discussed. This goes for the maps as well. The interpretation would be further enhanced if time lines were included and schematics of say, the Haiga Sofia, imperial family trees, the circus or the walls of Theodosius. For work I write a lot of reports and nothing explains more clearly and draws in your readers more than pictures, graphs and illustrations in general. And in this digital age with advanced desk top publishing tools widely available that is not such big ask. But apparently it is a no-go in the semi literary / historically academic wold, even thoughts is a popular history book.I‘ve read quite a bit on the material. Listen to several podcast series. I’ve been to Constantinople, walked along the walls of Theosodsius! And hung out for over 300 hours in the pretty accurate virtual recreation of the city in Assassins Creed Revelations. So I was very pleased to dig deeper into almost all of the topics coved in the book. Therefore, aside from some of the issues cited, I liked the book that is quite accessible and that will be a great help to those interested in understanding more of the almost forgotten Byzantine empire.

This book is intended as an introduction for the lay reader to the Byzantine world and a vindication of it, to prove that it was a vigorous society and one with a meaningful legacy. It only partially succeeds in these goals; taking a largely thematic structure with only loose chronological organisation makes it much harder to follow, and you lose track of most of the individuals discussed. I think a more standard chronological approach (as with the Basil II chapter) probably would have been better. Herrin certainly shows that this was never a decrepit state but a real continuation of Roman society; its Christianity was not a fundamental shift nor a mere gloss but something that deeply combined with the pagan influences. And the state continued to accumulate influences from its neighbours, always adapting, and surviving even absurd threats such as that of the Latins in 1204. One theme that Herrin demonstrates successfully is the notion that Byzantium has been consistently and tragically misrepresented by the west.

If you have a basic knowledge of Byzantium, this fine work will help fill in many of the gaps.Yes, as many other readers point out , the book is not entirely in chronological order, and instead tackles different element of the Eastern Empire in different chapters. For me this was great as it allowed me to hone in on specific topics and get to understand them in their entirety. There is an undercut of the timeline of Byzantium flowing through the book to the these together.I also thoroughly enjoyed how it focused on different elements of the empire, from its traders and military figures, to its princesses and patriarchs. Rather than just being a solid list of emperors, their achievements, and misgivings.All in all, I would recommend to others with an interest in the medieval period, or an interest in the foundation of Greece and the queen city.

An nformative and readalable overview of life in the Byzantine Empire. The book provides a wealth of detail on all aspects of Byzantine society and, additionally, is a good history in of the Empire as well. It clearly shows the development of the Byzantine Empire from the roots in the Eastern Roman Empire.