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A History of Byzantium #2

Byzantium: The Apogee

john julius norwich

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In The Early Centuries John Julius Norwich told the epic tale of the Roman Empire's second capital up to Christmas Day AD 800 – when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as a rival emperor. This second volume of his magnificent history covers the following three centuries. In it he continues his compelling chronicle up to the coronation of the heroic Alexius Comnenus in 1081. The other two volumes in the trilogy, The Early Centuries and The Decline and Fall, are also published in Penguin.

412 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1991
Series
A History of Byzantium
Places
byzantine empire, 

This edition

Format
412 pages, Paperback
Published
January 1, 1993 by Penguin Books Ltd
ISBN
9780140114485
ASIN
0140114483
Language
English

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About the author

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john julius norwich

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John Julius Norwich was born in London and served in the Royal Navy before receiving a degree in French and Russian at New College, Oxford. After graduation, he joined the Foreign Service and served in Belgrade, Beirut, and as a member of British delegation to the Disarmament Conference in Geneva. In 1954, he inherited the title of Viscount Norwich. In 1964, he resigned from the Foreign Service to become a writer. He was a historian, travel writer, and television personality.

His books included The Normans in the South, A History of Venice, The Italian World, Venice: A Traveller's Companion, 50 Years of Glyndebourne: An Illustrated History, A Short History of Byzantium, Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy, Sicily: An Island at the Crossroads of History, and A History of France. He and H. C. Robbins Landon wrote Five Centuries of Music in Venice.

Norwich was the host of the BBC radio panel game My Word! from 1978 to 1982. He wrote and presented more than 30 television documentaries including Maestro, The Fall of Constantinople, Napoleon's Hundred Days, Cortés and Montezuma, Maximilian of Mexico, The Knights of Malta, The Treasure Houses of Britain, and The Death of the Prince Imperial in the Zulu War.

In 1993, he was appointed CVO for having curated an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum to mark the 40th anniversary of the Queen's accession to the throne. In 2015, he was awarded the Biographers' Club award for his lifetime service to biography. He died on June 1, 2018 at the age of 88.

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75 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
sHorTyi_
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I finished reading Byzantium: The Apogee by John Julius Norwich. Great book by one of the better popular historians of Byzantium and Late Antiquity.
Though the title implies the whole book is of the Golden Age, a good chunk is about the Byzantine state's military struggles against the Caliphates, the Bulgars, & the Rus; political maneuverings against the Western Church and the western emperors; and numerous rebellions and usurpers. The Macedonian dynasty, I realized, wasn't so much a time of peaceful internal progress. It had as much internal strife as in previous dynasties, only the weaker external threats meant these civil wars were not as threatening.
The big takeaway from this story: a nation with a solid civic infrastructure can undergo heavy external and internal strains and still survive. If the populace has faith in its institutions, it seems it will overcome its fear of upheaval.
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IHadinot
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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"Hoy toca reseñar Bizancio. El apogeo (Ático de los libros, 2024), el segundo de la historia en tres volúmenes del Imperio bizantino de John Julius Norwich. Lo primero que tengo que decir es que, aunque el libro tiene la misma extensión que el primero (528 páginas), cubre sólo la mitad de la cantidad de años (478 años en el primer volumen y 281 en el segundo). La razón principal es que hay más fuentes para este período posterior y estas son más completas, por lo que la narración de Norwich es mucho más detallada..."
RESEÑA COMPLETA: https://atrapadaenunashojasdepapel.bl...
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BaeConMan
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Phenomenal entry into a phenomenal trilogy. Norwich by his own admission isn't an academic, which for a history "fan" eminently readable. It allows him to dabble in character quirks, rumors, and fascinating conjecture without getting bogged down in pedantry.

As for the content itself, it's a fascinating histroy. Rivalry between the military and beuracracy, strong emperors forging a new path for the empire, which shortly gets eroded by weak and hedonic puppet emperors. The cycle often repeats itself. It's much more confusing than the original Roman Empire and is radically different.
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Alakay
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Thoroughly enjoyable sequel to the Byzantium: The Early Centuries by the same author. The second part of the trilogy reads as well as the first part and, just as the first part, weaves the story very skilfully, always explaining the preceding context. Worth noting is that the trilogy is not meant for academics studying the history of the Eastern Empire, but for ordinary people interested in this reasonably undersupplied by way of books fragment of history, a point made numerous times by the author.

The second part takes off with the coronation of Charlemagne and the consequent establishment of the competing Western Roman Empire in the year 800 and ends shortly after the disaster of Manzikert in 1071. The lopping off of noses, a way of ensuring that a defeated contender would never become the emperor (in keeping with a tradition that a disfigured person could not become one), so prevalent in the first part of the trilogy, gives way to a much more effective practice of beheading, after a nose-less deposed imperial family member became the emperor, nonetheless…

In the second part, when the Empire comes under continuous onslaught of the Saracens, Bulgars, Magyars, Pechenegs, Russians, the Western Empire, Turks, and the papacy, it becomes even more evident how the quality, or lack thereof, of the various emperors impacted the fate of the Empire. The quality understood, in essence, as the continuous ability to maintain authority in all four of the principal constituencies of the Empire – the army, the aristocracy, the Orthodox Church, and the people of Constantinople. Ignoring any of these constituencies or allowing one’s guard to be lowered even for relatively short periods, often resulted in coup d’états, with consequent beheadings, or at best consignments of the former emperors to one of the many monasteries. The second part brings with it the dawning of the Orthodox Church as an autonomous entity to be reckoned with, often impacting events in a significant way.

When reading the book, more than during the lecture of any other, including the first part, it dawned on me how the unfolding historical events bear resemblance to the modern day. When led by feckless emperors, with the aristocracy preoccupied solely with preserving its dominion, and the army perceived (often justifiably so, it must be said) predominantly as a threat, rather than the principal bulwark of the Empire, and, consequently, allowed to wither away during periods of relative peace, the Empire fell victim to external threats, not necessarily due to the seriousness of these, but largely at its own request.

Very glad to have read the second part, I look forward (despite the sad and well-known 1453 grand finale) to reading the third part of this captivating trilogy. Onwards…!
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nic_zzz
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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A continuing well written history of the Byzantine Kingdome. Just like the first work. Ready for number three the Fall.
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Minonine
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Read and learn of the Bulgar Khan Krum and his drinking cup made from an emperor's skull! Marvel at the rise of Basil II Bulgaroctonus (the Bulgar-slayer) and his revenge!
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Tonwing
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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This second book in Norwich's trilogy eloquently takes the reader through Byzantium's tangled and complex high period. The journey is intriguing, at times hair-raising (most memorably the desperate and sorry end of Michael V: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_V) and beautifully written throughout.

The author writes with an obvious passion, critical eye and at times a dry wit as he takes the reader over the years starting with the crowning of Charlemagne, through the phases of Iconoclasm and then the Great Schism between the eastern and western churches then on past the pivotal Battle of Manzikert. All through this the Byzantine imperial families are ever restless, making both sound and ludicrous tactical and political decisions that see the empire's borders continue to change in an almost fluid fashion. As I turned the last page I felt just as hooked as I ever have been on any work of fiction.

A fine piece.
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Grunizzle101
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Like the first volume of Norwich's Byzantium trilogy, The Apogee provides a fast paced account of several centuries in the life of the empire. Unfortunately, the period covered in this installment, 800-1080, is not as interesting as Constantinople's founding and early years. In fact, much of the book covers nothing more than court intrigue and countless imperial successions. It is easy to see why Byzantium's emperors, unlike those of the earlier Western Empire, have been largely forgotten.
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