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Sailing from Byzantium: How a Lost Empire Shaped the World

colin wells

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A gripping intellectual adventure story, Sailing from Byzantium sweeps you from the deserts of Arabia to the dark forests of northern Russia, from the colorful towns of Renaissance Italy to the final moments of a millennial city under siege….

the successor of Greece and Rome, this magnificent empire bridged the ancient and modern worlds for more than a thousand years. Without Byzantium, the works of Homer and Herodotus, Plato and Aristotle, Sophocles and Aeschylus, would never have survived. Yet very few of us have any idea of the enormous debt we owe them.

The story of Byzantium is a real-life adventure of electrifying ideas, high drama, colorful characters, and inspiring feats of daring. In Sailing from Byzantium, Colin Wells tells of the missionaries, mystics, philosophers, and artists who against great odds and often at peril of their own lives spread Greek ideas to the Italians, the Arabs, and the Slavs.

Their heroic efforts inspired the Renaissance, the golden age of Islamic learning, and Russian Orthodox Christianity, which came complete with a new alphabet, architecture, and one of the world’s greatest artistic traditions.

The story’s central reference point is an arcane squabble called the Hesychast controversy that pitted humanist scholars led by the brilliant, acerbic intellectual Barlaam against the powerful monks of Mount Athos led by the stern Gregory Palamas, who denounced “pagan” rationalism in favor of Christian mysticism.

Within a few decades, the light of Byzantium would be extinguished forever by the invading Turks, but not before the humanists found a safe haven for Greek literature. The controversy of rationalism versus faith would continue to be argued by some of history’s greatest minds.

Fast-paced, compulsively readable, and filled with fascinating insights, Sailing from Byzantium is one of the great historical dramas–the gripping story of how the flame of civilization was saved and passed on.

335 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1,2006

This edition

Format
335 pages, Hardcover
Published
July 25, 2006 by Delacorte Press
ISBN
9780553803815
ASIN
0553803816
Language
English

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colin wells

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Rating(4.1 / 5.0, 99 votes)
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99 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Toadbuster
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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I began this book and quickly got lost in the vague references and poorly constructed historical time line. I'm not impressed. This book seems more like an extremely long college essay. I would prefer the author to put the story of Byzantium in context. To say the least, this book is lacking in finer details. I would like to also note I could not complete this book, I am not a fan of the writing itself.

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Csral
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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Wells' study is both directly simple and rather complex: it's not a history per se of Byzantium, but rather (as the subtitle hints) a survey of how the Byzantine Empire shaped three major currents of world history--Western Europe, Islam, and the Slavic nations.
Trying to cover so much means he has to step lightly and quickly. Where I'm already strong (Western Europe and Islam), this meant it was more of a review rather than a revelation. But for the Slavic matter, it was a relentless offering of new information. Thanks to Wells' coverage, I've been on multiple research forays since to learn more about Byzantine mysticism (hesychasm) and the whole history of the Paleologos dynasty.
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AshxxMisty
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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"Sailing for Byzantium" is an explicit account of the history of the eastern Roman empire as well as its leaders and the culture that developed there. A very dense book with some tough sledding in parts, yet I highlighted more lines within it's pages than I have in a long time. I will use this book for future reference.
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Massimo________
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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Simply written, not too complex, excellent history for the person who has no previous knowledge of the subject.
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SilentMuse
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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A vital book that sheds much needed light on a pivotal element in world history. The Byzantine Empire (more accurately, the Eastern Roman Empire) sheltered classical civilisation as the West crumbled into barbarian anarchy, and Islam took hold in the East. The much revered Islamic renaissance was built on the achievements and scholars of the conquered lands, which then trickled west over the coming centuries to seed advances in Europe. There would be no modern world if Constantinople fell in the 7th century, when everything suggested that it would. Instead its survival and slow strangulation over the next millennium allowed most of its intellectual treasures to endure and slowly seep into what became Europe. This book is a long, slow read, but it tells a crucial story.
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_3msuge_
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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This is a great book for lovers of history. The capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, was located in what is now Istambul, Turkey. Constantinople was the capital city of the Roman Empire (330–395), the Byzantine Empire (395–1204 and 1261–1453), the brief Crusader state known as Latin Empire (1204–1261), and the Ottoman Empire (1453–1923). The Byzantine Empire was the seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church, (and later the foundation upon which the Russian Orthodox Church was founded), and which vied with the Latin (Catholic) church for prominence and membership. One of the main contributions of the empire, was the spread of scholarly learning from ancient Greek texts.
This book also tells of the religious, political and social struggles between the numerous early Eastern European groups, the Christians in the West, pagans, Muslims and others. The book outlines the achievements of the Byzantine Empire and how it impacted the rest of the Asian and European world.
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orerreug
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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Learned a great deal of the Byzantines, and the Orthodox Church, both Greek, Russian and then Catholic churches. Many new notables, philosophers, scientists, military leaders and rulers of a wide part of the world from 500-1550 and how they all tie in to Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire.
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