Norwich is an old-school historian (occasionally moralizing and judgmental) who is clearly passionate about the work. I did find it impossible to finish, as the middle part of the book is a bewildering mishmash of "such and such cut off the reigning Emperor's nose, before he himself was usurped by so and so three weeks later." To be fair, that was Byzantine history for you.

With a prose that flows like a cracking novel, Norwich packs a wealth of information into this edition. In an oft forgotten side of the story of the Roman Empire, he provides a brilliant introduction to a fabulous story. There are plenty of wonderful characters amid the pages: the heroic, brutal, mad and pathetic. This is a narrative history, sweeping in its coverage, and if that is what you are after you won't get any better.

If we view ourselves from a great height, it is frightening to realize how little we know about our species, our purpose and our end.

Sebald was talking about flying over densely settled areas, but to read the compressed chronicle of a thousand year empire is also to view our species from a great height, and the experience offers just as frightening a vantage. From the heights of historical survey, from the distance of many centuries, the professed, the “higher” motivations and justifications barely reach our ears. “Christendom” as a united bloc of believers seems a fantasy; or a joke, an easy irony; as “democracy” will one day be; and all we can see are the compulsive collisions of states; the borders receding, the borders advancing; the cities built by some, and torn down by others; the usurpers and regicides ascending supposedly sacred thrones (each Byzantine emperor was acclaimed “equal to the Apostles”); the political entities in their periods of strength exploiting and devouring, in their periods of weakness exploited and devoured by others; the universal wolf. (Sir Philip Sidney said a great conqueror is but the momentary “cock of this world’s dunghill.”) Just as we fly over cities knowing that human beings are guiding those toy cars and emitting that industrial smoke, so also do we scan each war-filled page knowing that thousands of people, way, way down there – slightly clouded over by “battle was joined” or “the looting lasted three days” – are being raped and robbed and murdered; or are raping and robbing and murdering.

And that last ditch narrative, of “Decadence,” is story we Band-Aid over our confusion, a story that does not clarify our situation – does not point a direction or describe a momentum. Norwich’s remark that the pivotal catastrophe of Byzantium - defeat by the Seljuk Turks at Manzikert in 1071 - occurred three centuries before the Emperor became a vassal of a different Turkic state, the Ottomans (by which time the Seljuk order had been shattered in its turn by Tamburlaine’s Mongols), and four centuries before the Empire finally, cinematically “fell” (Constantine XI, last emperor and namesake of the millennium-distant founder, when he saw the Turks had breached Constantinople's land walls cast off his purple robes and led a last desperate charge, his body never to be identified or recovered*), made me pull down my copy of Richard Gilman’s Decadence: The Strange Life of a Epithet, in which I saw that I had once underlined this:

One begins to suspect that whatever “decadence” may be it plays a scapegoat role as a word, an ascription. And it serves, it seems, to cover up our ignorance of, or refusal to see, how the world operates in one of its deepest dimensions independently of what we call cause and effect…History is not a chronicle of discrete events or epochs, nor is it to be understood in categorical ways. Everything connects. The reason “decadence” will not do as a description of Rome is that it does injustice to both her past and her future; she did not wind down, she did not disappear, nor did she bring down upon herself her own fate. Fate was there, and fate is another word for change.

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* He was long thought to slumber in a cave, awaiting the hour when he would reconquer Constantinople/Istanbul for Christianity. What is it with Eastern Orthodoxy and agelessly slumbering heroes? The 18th century Russian field marshal and scourge of the Ottomans Aleksandr Suvuorov was also believed to sleep deeply within a mountain, to awake in the Motherland's hour of greatest peril. This belief was so durable and widespread that during WWII Red Army soldiers were propagandistically conflated with Suvorov's shade:

http://www.ganesha.org/hall/suvorov1.jpg

Condensing over 1100 years of history into 382 pages, and giving an honest account of the events playing out, is not an easy task. John Julius Norwich managed to cope with this challenge exquisitely. Not entirely surprising, given an equally interesting account of the history of Venice, spanning a similar period, provided in another of his books.

The book reads easily, surprising given the matter not being of the easiest calibre. It captures the greatness, the deceit, the cruelty, the foreign policy masterpieces and blunders, the military triumphs and crashing defeats, all of which played out over the 1123 years and 18 days of the Byzantine Empire’s existence. Having read a number of books touching different aspects of Byzantine history, but not a single one of them being a comprehensive account of the whole, I was particularly shocked to find out the ruthlessness with which some of the emperors and emperor candidates met. The beheadings, stabbings, eye-gouging, tearing out tongues, cutting off limbs, infanticide were all meted out liberally when securing the throne was concerned. A welcome departure from this trend appears to have occurred only during the reign of the Palaeologi dynasty, during which transfers of power were mostly dynastic, and the reigns much longer, perhaps because there was so little to inherit by then.

While recognising all the extraneous factors which contributed to Byzantium’s ultimate fate, it becomes evident to the reader that, as often in history, the most important elements which tore the Empire apart came from within. The frequent civil wars, during which Byzantine armies representing different contenders to the throne faced each other, sapped the Empire’s strength, strength which was otherwise needed to face the enemies, amassing on its extensive borders. Unfortunately, the contending parties frequently availed themselves in these circumstances of the very external enemies, against whom Byzantium should have been defended. Irresponsible taxation, combined with permitting the military to wither away for fear of it staging a coup, did not help, either. Nor did the numerous theological disputes, which weakened the fabric of the Byzantine society, and which arose at precisely the moments when unity seemed essential. All these should serve as a stern reminder to many societies of today which rip themselves apart encouraged by unscrupulous populists. One can almost hear a “Make Byzantium Great Again” call being professed by one, or another, of the contending parties, while true enemies rub their hands in joy.

Another inglorious, but important, element which precipitated Byzantium’s fall was the ambivalent, more frequently hostile, stance displayed by the Latin (Roman Catholic) church. Even when the popes themselves did not actively animate the efforts to collapse the Eastern Empire, it was done unprompted in their name by Venice, Holy Roman Emperors, Norman kings of Sicily, or France. All in total ignorance of the invaders from the East, against whom Byzantium could serve, and successfully served, as a bulwark for Europe – Pechenegs, Slavs, Turkic tribes (Seljuks and Ottomans). Particularly, the inglorious role played by Venice in orchestrating the Fourth Crusade, which resulted in the sack of Constantinople, and permanent loss of Byzantium’s standing and power, from which Byzantium never recovered, springs out particularly vividly.

So engrossed in the fascinating history of the Byzantine Empire, as narrated by John Julius Norwich, I became that still only part way through the book I ordered the three original volumes on the early centuries, the apogee, and the fall of Byzantium, respectively, which, condensed, produced the book just finished. Sadly, only one these books is nowadays available new. I look forward to expanding my knowledge of this fascinating, and varied, part of humanity’s history.

I enjoyed it, but I think I would have preferred to slog through the 3-volume version, as this one leaves out some detail that I think I personally needed to keep all the names and characters straight. If you're not so worried about that, I recommend!

What is, essentially, the abridged version of John Julius Norwich's 3-volume history on the Byzantine Empire truncated down to under 500 pages, it works to a degree. Despite being published in 1997 it reads more like a liberally positive pre-WW2 historian writing of the empire and its characters at the top.

He is an excellent writer and you can feel that. He provides a lively and often engrossing story of the eastern Romans but that is also wherein lies the problem. That story is so lively because Norwich is just too accepting of the written histories of the Byzantine authors and their rather lively writing as a base for a great writer in their own right is a recipe for interesting but not always the most accurate history book. And there is just too many Gibbons quotes in there (my threshold for too much Gibbons is one serious use of his work). It's a mostly good summary of the primary sources for a layperson but it just needs to be couched while reading that you need to pick up some better ranging works afterwards.

But, though this sounds mostly negative, I do think you can do worse for a general introduction to the topic but I imagine (and hope to find) the better summary of the Byzantine's out there and if you are going to dedicate 4-500 pages of your time it's probably just worth it too find one of those. That said, it's generally correct enough and a good enough read to not really get a super low rating.

I was really interested to learn more about the East-Roman empire and about that mythical Byzantium. Clearly Norwich’ book is an excellent guide for this purpose and in the first 130 pages I learned a lot, especially about the relationship between Rome and Constantinople and the fact that - despite two centres of power - it was long seen and run as one empire.

I initially stopped because I could not bare the continuous murders, especially of emperors killing their brothers and their sons.

I finally decided to drop it completely because of the level of detail and the fact that it concerns history of a time frame (our Middle Ages) that is difficult to relate to.

This is a truly ghastly book by an historian who has written several outstanding works. I wish now that I had stopped at the introduction in which the author explains that his "Short History" is an abridged version of his trilogy on the history of Byzantium. Abridgments of this sort are typically lifeless as indeed this one is. A bare bones narrative exists but the passages that provided narrative flow and spirit are gone. Norwich's 900 page narrative of the 200 year history of the Normans Kingdom in Italy zips along. The Short History of Byzantium which takes 380 pages to cover 1100 years gets bogged down in a meaningless string of names and events that seem to take forever to read. When Norwich writes at the length that he is comfortable with, he produces full fleshed characters and dynamic narratives. When he cut to make this book, the result was a senseless list of events.

What Norwich actually says about Byzantium actually makes sense. He argues that Byzantium (a.k.a.) in its very long existence enjoyed many great moments, and that its history should not be presented as a single long decline as Gibbon did. In Norwich's view Byzantium was very stable from the fourth to the eleventh centuries. Then three factors caused it to go into decline. First, the conquests by Islamic dynasties greatly undermined Byzantium's political power in the Eastern Mediterranean. Second, the Crusaders caused great damage whenever then crossed Byzantium on their way to the Holy Land. The sacking of Constantinople in 1204 by the Fourth Crusade had a particularly devastating impact of the fortunes of Byzantium. Finally, the rise of Venice caused Byzantium to lose its position as the dominant trading power in the region. In 1453, the Ottoman Turks finally conquered Byzantium which had many afflictions at the end but which had also had seven centuries of true glory.

In his introduction, Norwich being if nothing else honest, explains that he did not read any of the original histories in Greek as they were available in English translation. This of course begs the question: should the reader simply not read the same classical histories instead of Norwich's book. Most professors teaching undergraduate courses on Byzantium (a.k.a. the late Roman Empire)make their students read "The Secret History" by Procopius and tge Chronicles of the Crusades by Geoffrey Villehardouin and Jean de Joinville). My own feeling that both of these works would be more worthwhile for the general reader interested in Byzantium that Norwich's "Short History of Byzantium."

This one was a bit of a slog. Don't get me wrong, Norwich's writing style is very light and not remotely academic, but there's a sameness to both subject and treatment that lulls one into an occasional sense of confusion. The real trouble is that there's little emphasis on which events or people may be more relevant than others. Norwich skips from one battle or imperial intrigue to the next without ever drawing a breath. Further, there's the lack of much context about other contemporary empires. The Arabs rise up, threaten Byzantium, are beaten back and then seem to disappear. Where's any further information about the rise of the Baghdad Caliphate and its connection to the Turks? OK, the length of the narrative doesn't leave much room for detail and Norwich warns us in the introduction that it'll be a fast ride. Norwich is a fantastic storyteller and any book with the sentence "There was the usual frenzy of murder and pillage" can't be all bad.

Hey now, this was one long "short" history. 431 pages of murder, usurption, blinding (lots of blinding), mutilation, and just plain history. I'm exhausted. I also couldn't stop reading.

Being thoroughly confused about the Eastern Roman Empire and wanting to learn more about the great Justinian, I added this volume to my collection with the view that I would just leaf through for a bit and then put it in the queue for a future reading. Wrong! I became enslaved to every new emperor and shook my head at the sacking of Constantinople by the whacked-out western Crusaders. I wanted to be there when the Byzantine Empire was at its height, before sloth and the good life weakened future rulers.

I've stayed away from John Julius Norwich because one of his books entrapped me in a library once and I didn't want that to happen again. But he is splendid at writing history and illuminating lost civilizations. Beginning with Constantine the Great, Norwich takes the reader through a rollercoaster of an empire, one that just didn't seem to realize its time would eventually come to an end. The Roman Empire didn't stop with the fall of Rome, but the eastern portion certainly took a different path. If you want to learn more about the Byzantines, without reading the original three volumes by Norwich, then this is certainly an excellent way to get it done.

"One of the extraordinary phenomena in all history is the way suddenly, from one moment to the next, one city or small country is touched by the angel's wing. And then just as suddenly, it's gone."

Book Season = Spring (no delusions, no mercy)

After reading a few books on the end of the Roman Republic, and a couple on the Roman Empire, this book was an excellent overview of the last 1100 years of the empire that isn't covered in the usual Roman books. Remove the negative opinions you have of the Byzantines brought on by Edward Gibbons and dive into this excellent overview of the second half of Rome.

Mai la storia fu così grottesca
La storia di Bisanzio vista attraverso gli intrighi di palazzo e la successione delle dinastie; a detta dell'autore stesso il problema principale è che questo libro all'inizio era in tre volumi e descriveva meglio gli episodi dei vari basileus romani d'Oriente (no, non bizantini). Non sono granché soddisfatto da questo testo, che è nientemeno che un estratto di opere ben più voluminose, anche se seguire l'intera vicenda dal 300 d.C. circa al 1453 d.C., è tutto sommato avvincente. Non amo granché lo stile dell'autore, spesso gli imperatori sfuggono sotto l'occhio di chi legge, e il modo di andare avanti e indietro con le date ha un effetto catastrofico. Norvich vuole descrivere a tutti i costi le vicende alla sua maniera, legando fatti anche a distanza di 20 anni gli uni dagli altri: "l'imperatore X fece così nell'anno Y come fece nell'anno Y-20". Ne risulta una narrazione caotica, assolutamente non storica e decisamente più discorsiva, anche visti i commenti stessi dell'autore (del tutto gratuiti, secondo me): "se fosse morto nell'anno X sarebbe stato meglio per i sudditi..." eccetera. La storia così proposta è un susseguirsi di vicende in pieno stile Beautiful (anche se nessuno nega che lo sia stato, rimane il problema di darsi il contegno da storico), di accecamenti, evirazioni e castrazioni, impalamenti e uccisioni, il tutto narrato grossomo come fosse un After Action Report di Crusader Kings 2 della Paradox.