An interesting little book about the influence of the Byzantine empire on Western Europe, Islam, and the Slavs. Each is addressed chronologically in its own section. I found the sections of the book about Islam and the Slavs very compelling. Each section, however, suffers from an annoying characterstic: devolution into a flood of names of obscure historical personalities by its conclusion. But other than that, a great book.

(And on a personal note, this book did a great job of depicting the beginnings of Eastern Slavic states, dispelling a number of "facts" that I've heard numerous times about the Kyiv Rus.)

An easy-to-read, popular history that discusses Byzantium's cultural influence on the three younger civilizations that grew up around the remains of the ancient Mediterranean: the Latin West, the Arab-Islamic world, and the Slavic world to the north and east of Constantinople. If you find this period of history interesting, the book is well worth picking up.

I learned a fair deal from this and found cerain parts, especially in the first two parts, to be fairly interesting. I read enough before starting to not expect a conventional history of Byzantium, so the focus was no issue.

With that said, the endless torrent of names Wells throws at you through much of the book can be a bit overwhelming, far too numerous for readers to be expected to remember all but the most interesting/important of them. The latter parts of Part III, on Byzantium's influence on the development of the Slavic world, represent this at its most tedious (from around the time Moscow is emerging as the leading city in the region).

Still, the large opening part on Byzantium and the West is pretty fascinating in its pursuit of the book's main goal - sharing the story of Byzantine Humanists' salvation of Hellenistic learning and the inter-European political/spiritual infighting that accompanied it. It's this section that provides many of the most memorable figures, drawn largely from the Humanists, such as Barlaam of Calabria, John Bessarion, and the towering Manuel Chrysoloras, with a vibrant background cast of historical titans including Byzantine emperors and the Medicis. You get a well-developed feel for the connections between East and West and the ebbing and flowing of both political power and philosophical trends, which are frequently intertwined. I'd say its the most engaging narrative here, which Wells must agree with since it's easily the largest section.

The Arab/Byzantine section has similar potential, but is oddly stunted/condensed. I came in expecting to be really interested by the Slavic section, which I knew least about, and it does serve as an effective contrast to the Western section, making the Hesychasts who I saw as the antagonists of the Western section read like the protagonists in Greater Russia. The early parts of the section give useful insight into the formation of the Slavic world, but by the end I felt burned out, bored, and eager to be done...maybe because I had a hard time caring about or rooting for anybody or maybe because it had all just become too dry.

Overall this is an informative and ambitious book (trying to make such dense, sprawling material work as a casually readable edition), which score a mixed bag of success and failure. The timelines, maps, and "who's who" at the book's front are nearly essential tools, suggesting that the author or his editors realized what a tangle of names and stories they created.

This is an excellent text for those who are trying to connect history's dots. For the casually interested reader it still has much appeal. One can get a good sense of the tremendous influence Byzantium had on almost all of today's civilization. As a casual reader, I found it difficult to keep track of all the players. There are many, many people with difficult names. It was hard to keep them all organized.

This is one of those tricky books that I want to like more than I do. It's hard to pitch a history like this exactly right. There were parts where I felt the author was going into more detail than I wanted, since I picked the book based on prior interest. In other places, I wanted him to connect the dots more. So, how does this relate to what I already know? Why do I feel like there is a big hole here? I know there's something missing but I can't quite remember what? So, in some ways it is overspecialized and in other ways underspecialized.

I think it’s an interesting book that should have been titled “Sailing from Byzantium, How a Lost Empire Shaped the 19th and 20th centuries Briths fancy for Greece.” This book is a difficult read and the fact that (for some unknown the reader reason) the historical timeline is scrambled (if not confused) makes it even more difficult.

This book gives us a small insight of how the thousand year Byzantine Empire influenced Western Europe, Islam and the Slavs. In its three chapters covering the influence of the three neighbouring civilizations mentioned above, the author explains in a simply way how the Byzantines studied and teached the ancient Greek classics and translated them so that after the fall of Constantinople the legacy continued. Therefore we had the Italian renaissance, the rise of Islam and the formation of the Slavic states and the birth of Russia.

Filled a gap in my understanding of the flow of historical events bridging Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages, the fascinating rise to power and influence of Arabs and Turks, and the influence of the Slavic nations.

Through its long decline and many revivals, the Byzantine Empire strongly influenced the Latin West, the Islamic world, and the Slavs (though all three were instrumental in the eventual end of the Empire).

This book was twice as delightful as I expected it to be.

I am often amazed at how little of human history is taught in America's schools. Little basic understanding of the rise if Islam or of the role Constantinople played in preserving the legacy of the ancient Greeks and sparking the western renaissance.

This book covers not only those two fascinating subjects in the kind of broad overview that I find so helpful, but also devotes one-third of its pages to the influence Byzantium had on the formation of the Russian and Slavic states and the religion there.

Additionally, despite how clear and well-informed the author is in his presentation and maps (lots and lots of maps!)the book is written in a light style not bound down by the kind of scholarly lingo meant to impress the reader but which so often results in the reader's eyes getting heavy.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone who has even a passing interest in the subject because it is easy to read and you will finish it better informed about a truly fascinating period of human history and a crucial link between ancient times and our own.

Título e subtítulo da edição brasileira deste livro levam a crer que se trata de um livro sobre o Império Bizantino, mas a verdade é que o tema do estudo de Colin Wells é a influência de Bizâncio sobre três grandes civilizações vizinhas: o ocidente europeu, o mundo islâmico e os eslavos. Com efeito, este livro trata mais da influência dos bizantinos sobre Florença, Roma, Damasco, Bagdá, Kiev e Moscou do que da própria história do Império. Não era exatamente o que eu procurava, mas, como não gosto de deixar livro pela metade, li até o fim. É interessante, mas acho que falta uma visão menos baseada em personagens históricos específicos e mais enfática nos movimentos gerais.

I like the idea of this book, but it turned out to be more scholarly than I expected, with many historical names thrown about. I did better through the first half of the book since we have been covering Roman and early Dark Ages history for homeschool, but through the rest of the book I felt quite lost and fought a constant urge to skim. I only stuck with it because I’m not a quitter, ha! I’m sure this is an excellent book for those who are better informed and/or able to take their time and dig in to understand everything.