My Amazon review on February 23, 2018: Byzantium 1.0

Once upon a time I probably would have found this a dry and dusty recitation of ancient history. Which it sort of is, inarugably ancient anyway. But dry and dusty? Far from it! This is an utterly fascinating recitation of the creation and ascent of early Byzantium, up through 800 AD. Norwich was forced to rush somewhat to cover roughly 5 centuries of incredibly convoluted and tortuous history in less than 400 pages. Perhaps that is why I gave it 4 stars instead of 5. One thing I really liked was the year annotated on each page, a lot of history books would benefit from that simple convention. Every human vice and virtue seems to be paraded across the pages at various times with personalities covering the entire spectrum of behavior. The lack of detail in many of these pivotal events is somewhat frustrating and the lack of primary sources forces the author to make many assumptions and inferences about what happened, which he freely admits at times. The epic of the Byzantine stand before the Muslim siege of Constantinople in 674-678 is covered in about two pages, yet is one of those moments in history when worlds were literally in balance. As Norwich points out, defeat then and there and Europe would likely have been overrun by Islam. Byzantium literally saved Western civilization (and possibly Christianity, until Angela Merkel and the leftists in the EU who are busily ruining Europe in the name of 'tolerance'). The crazies running American 'academia' today probably think that is a bad thing which is more frightening than any invasion. Defeat occurs in the mind first. But I really would like to see Constantinople now, despite its ultimate fate. There is a nice listing of Byzantine remains in the city in an appendix. I look forward to book two which I just ordered!

Well-written, expertly paced non-fiction. The people and their personality drive the narrative and the attention to detail reveals extensive research. A great blend of knowledge and skillful writing.

Loved it. Moving to vol.2

Great if you're interested in the broad history of an empire than lived through many eras of transformation in European society. This book stands out in two areas: a strong focus on civil administration and the effect of religion during this era. The first is noticibly broad, but includes enough to get a decent grasp of how various Byzantine regimes enacted their rule. Whereas the latter is excrutiatingly detailed, yet fascinating. There are stories in here that deserve their own books.

I'd say it was a 4.25 for me.

It was just what I wanted. An overview of a time period I know nothing about, seriously, who knows anything about 330 to 802? I know much more now and it was quite a ride.

First of all, who knew that there could be so much interest/discussion/fighting about the nature of Christ?! It was eye opening how deeply this issue permeated the empire in the East. The idea of people getting into theological discussions like they debate something about football know is so fun to entertain. It has such an impact though! At times dividing, but also,you sense, in ways uniting. It was fun to get an into into that, though I'd say it was just a skim over what are deep waters.

Another aspect I enjoyed was seeing that something did change. There is a new idea that we seperate Byzantium and Rome to much, that there is a lot of continuity, but I was struck how there was so much different. Greek vs. Latin, the ubiquity of Christianity to the point where there are too many monks, and other differences as well. It's hard to put your finger on it, but it is certainly there, and the relations between Byzantium and Rome are a good glimpse into it.

The last thing I was stuck by was how much I overlooked the role Constantinople played in shielding Europe for the heretofore unstoppable Arabs. Everything else just falls under them, but Byzantium stays strong despite all the classic coups, plots, civil wars and so on. All in all it was very entertaining and informative. The biggest downside was how fast it all was. I'm guessing part of it is lack of sources, but there were decades that we just bounded over with hardly a glance.

Superb account but a long read, I found myself having to go back over previous chapters as I had forgotten certain details, certainly for the Byzantiphiles :) Got the other two volumes on my shelf- not sure when I'll tackle them!

Norwich was an engaging and attractive writer but could be rather lazy and too much of this is rehashed narrative.

A beautifully written account of the Roman Empire after the fall of the west. The book is peppered with memorable and witty pen portraits of historical figures.

Not a work of original research, but a highly readable condensation of contemporary and more recent histories of the era.

This book and its two sequels, Byzantium: The Apogee and Byzantium: Decline and fall take the reader from the time of Constantine I, the Roman emperor who moved the capital of the Roman empire from Rome to Constantinople in the early 4th century, right up the the death of his final namesake, Constantine XI and the final fall of the Roman empire in 1453 (and a little beyond).

I can't recommend it highly enough.

A well written piece of pop history, focusing upon, well, the early centuries of the Byzantine Empire. I like the narratives the author pushed with the characters, whilst also providing evidence for opposing views.

I felt like the Justinian bit was either in high praise or utter rejection, I think this stems from Procopius's "The Secret History" as opposed to his other works, because Procopius is our main source for Justinian. Justinian being either a good or bad emperor is something that sticks out to me as an interesting discussion.

I suppose I felt like the whole effect of losing the lands to the muslims and such wasn't really discussed in much detail. The next book is about the same length but covers about half the history, so I hope missing elements aren't a problem there. To be honest though I'm not even really sure it was a problem here, it's understandable.

It was just a very compelling and well written book. Fantastic. A thorough narrative that felt very human. It's weird, I suppose because it's history and it's written nicely I can't really think of any flaws. For me it's a 10/10.

This sort of laymen's history of emperors, battles, and xenophobia was fine in Gibbon's day but is badly out of date now.

淺顯易懂的拜占庭帝王列傳
從君士坦丁到伊琳妮
每次遇到重大危機時拜占庭總能化險為夷
以及每次危機都伴隨著大刀闊斧的改革續命
但拜占庭和基督教一直都在教義上糾纏導致危機不斷
不論是在蠻族還是波斯帝國還有後來的阿拉伯人崛起
教義總困擾著這帝國為未來的東西分裂埋下伏筆

Esta historia del Imperio Bizantino desde sus comienzos hasta el 800 d.C., desde Constantino a Carlomagno, es sumamente entretenida (como las demás obras que he leído de este autor: “Cuatro príncipes” y “Los papas”). Tiene una erudición tan amena que te enteras de temas históricos a veces arduos a través de muchas anécdotas e intrigas, algunas horrorosas y otras más divertidas. Gracias a Javier Marías fue nombrado Duque de Bizancio del Reino de Redonda. Me gusta mucho y sus libros son un reclamo para mí. Lástima que no podamos ya contar con ninguno de los dos en el reino de la literatura.