Very interesting book! However, it suffers from being either too shallow or too complicated. For someone with no prior knowledge on the subject, I think it would be overwhelming. But for someone familiar with byzantine history, it kind of pokes a lot of interesting subjects but falls a bit short in the analysis of them.

Byzantine history, for being so important in explaining the world today, is sadly badly known and understood. This book is a good attempt at rectifying this. But it does not know if it wants to target the curious reader or the hardcore history-nerds.

I think the overall topic is interesting (and one that I knew little about) and this book takes a different perspective on the typical history of Constantinople. However, as usual for these history books, it was far too detailed for my level of interest, and I found it quite boring at times.

A caveat to my review is that I used the audiobook to put me to sleep and probably missed up to half of it as a result, meaning it was overall a more disjointed experience. However, at times it was so boring that I couldn't even focus on it enough for it to be a good way to fall asleep. Every once in a while, though, there would be an interesting nugget of information.

Overall, I only recommend it if you find it a particularly interesting topic that you really want to go into depth on.

This book traces the export of Byzantine culture–both humanist and religious–in three directions: to the West, initially via Italy, to the Muslim cultures in the near east, and to the Slavic lands, primarily Bulgaria and Russia, but others as well. These exports are presented as a kind of life after death for the Byzantine Empire, which terminated politically and geographically when the Turks took Constantinople in 1453 and turned it into beautiful Istanbul, graced now with elegant minarets as well as impressive domes and columns.

As Wells presents the case, Byzantine exports fell in two general categories. One export or influence was the humanist thought in the narrow sense of ancient Greek and Latin literature and philosophy, but, as I read it, also with the implications that secular thought is worthwhile. The transmitters of this thought, with concentration in Aristotle and Plato, were a surprisingly small number of individuals who ignited others, especially in Italy, but enough in Islamic societies to inspire the Arab translations and preservation of the ancients. Humanist thought seems notably missing in the Slavic arena.

The other category of Byzantine influence was artistic and religious. Wells characterizes the artistic merits by the (religious) frescos in Istanbul��s Church of the Chora, which are indeed impressive. Even more so the frescos in Ravenna made during Theodoric’s time as Exarch. But I personally can’t forget the sterility of the icons, the individually painted but mass produced look- alike pictures of Jesus that were so happily superseded by real art once Giotto hit the scene Italy. I take it that the lasting artistic influence was in the slavic lands like Russia and to some extent and briefly in the Islamic world, which for a while used architecture as western powers did-- to symbolize great power. The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem is the major example.

The religious exports were different. Art and architecture can directly affect politics, as when they are used for propaganda and when they are used to demonstrate wealth and power. Religion can have more direct uses in supporting a particular regime or a particular policy of the governing powers through its prestige or through its carrots and sticks of eternal paradise or damnation. Wells does not explain how much, if any, of the influence of the Orthodox Byzantine church derived from threats of damnation so common in the West. But, as we know from familiar Western history, religion and secular power do usually support each other–the Pope crowned Charlemagne and Charlemagne supported the Pope with secular might. Wells tells us how this worked as Byzantine Orthodox religion managed to save itself form Western and Catholic domination and to export itself to Russia and other Slavic lands in a period when Russia was just beginning to form. That particular story begins with the power of the Orthodox Byzantine religion, still influenced from Constantinople, lending legitimacy to Russian rulers, and ends with the rulers dominating the Orthodox religion to use it for their own political purposes.

The two categories, I’ll call them religion and humanism, were to some extent at war with one another, and that is an interesting substory. Wells speaks of it metaphorically as the conflict between Athens and Jerusalem, although it does not appear to me that humanism stayed true to Athens once it flowered in Italy or that religion stayed true to what I take Wells to mean by Jerusalem once it became important to define true Christians precisely so that could get Constantine’s tax subsidy. At any rate, the monks, who came to be a big force in Byzantium, invented a kind of religious revival or renewal called Hesychasm that involved meditation, controlled breathing and repetitious prayer–self-hypnosis to unbelievers, I suppose. This was supposed to lead to theosis. Not a word we hear so much in the West, but it is known in some religious thinking. It refers to a claimed mystical union with God, where the human individual is actually absorbed into God’s “energy” if not God’s “essence.” Western mention of this idea like to use the watered down version–the human individual “partakes” of God (maybe for good reasons–it’s pretty strong stuff, this theosis).

The most interesting thing is that the monks and their mysticism grew to be enormously influential, to the point that humanists in reaction began to visit the West. This was part of the flow that drove the Renaissance, introduced or re-introduced the thought of Greece. And led to many conversions by Byzantine humanists to the Catholic Church.

Another substory of interest, whose significance is celebrated in this book but not really proven in detail, is the effects of the unique Slavic alphabet and language. Wells says it intellectually and religiously isolated the Slavic lands and also protected them–from domination by the Western thought and religion. The language and alphabet was the creation of Byzantine missionaries, Cyril and Methodius, and Wells tells that part of the tale well, but it would have been interesting to me to see him support with details, examples, and connections just how and to what extent this worked as an isolating factor that permitted self-development.

This book is reader-friendly. It is a popular book, not one of original scholarship; but Wells brings existing original scholarship of other to general readers in prose that is easy to follow (except for the hundreds of unfamiliar, very foreign-sounding names). Wells also includes up front a list of 40 or 50 major characters to help you keep track of all those names. He also gives readers several actual maps in case they have not memorized geography of the middle ages and renaissance. Cheers to him and Bantum Dell/Random House for this rare decency in publishing. (And yes, I do mean to imply that publishers who do not include needed maps are not doing the right thing.) Wells also provides detailed notes that most people won’t use, and a Timeline table that many people will. The table gives comparative headlines of conditions in Byzantium, the West, the Islamic and the Slavic world between the 6th century and the fall of Constantinople. I found the index useful, except that humanism was not an entry, perhaps because references were so pervasive.

This book was far better than I was expecting. I thought it was going to be a lightweight summary of Byzantine culture for people who have barely heard about Byzantium, but it turned out to be quite a bit deeper. The second act dealing with the Italian Renaissance was especially well done.

Texto sobre la influencia de la cultura bizantina en sus vecinos y sucesores (y, a través de ellos en el mundo actual) Contado con un estilo ágil, es una lectura agradable e incluye información muy interesante desde un punto de vista original. (Eso si, no es una historia del imperio como tal y salta de una época a otra según el tema del que le interese hablar)

Cool book, I realized how little I knew about the Byzantine Empire.

Scholarly yet approachable and at times entertaining, it can also be pedantic and thick. Segmented into Constantinople's influence on Western Europe, Islam and Russia.

A refreshingly erudite work that was also fun to read.

I have long had an interest in Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman history, and I also enjoy vertical histories (those books that cover a narrow subject but in depth). Sailing from Byzantium by Colin Wells is a vertical history that in its three parts attempts to describe the legacy of Byzantine culture. The importance of Byzantium, or the Eastern Roman Empire, lies beyond its territorial acquisitions or military prowess (or the loss of both as the centuries bore on until 1453).

Part I focuses on western Europe, primarily Italy, and the role of humanism that led to the Renaissance. As Catholic and Orthodox worked to re-unite, as the Crusades sent large numbers of westerners east, or as the Fourth Crusades captured Constantinople, both east and west interacted ever more frequently. For the west, this meant rediscovering classical Greek texts and Greek itself. Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Florence all felt the influence, which began the process of lifting the Dark Ages from western Europe.

Part II, the shortest part, explores the Byzantine influence on the Islamic world, particularly on effects of Aristotle on the development of a rationalistic philosophy epitomized by Averroes in Moorish Spain.

Part III returns to Europe but investigates the Slavic and, more importantly, Russian embracing of Orthodoxy, the battles between Catholic and Orthodox for supremacy in various regions, and Orthodoxy's Hesychasm movement on the development of Russian Orthodoxy.

Wells does a good job of describing the influences, how the Byzantium influenced the rest of its neighbors, and how Byzantium itself was influenced. Wells remains at a high level, and we only really get glimpses and quick overviews. And that is my main criticism of this book. At only 368 pages, I do not think it went in detail enough, did not take the various alleys and side stories it could have. Perhaps I have now read too much of this history and much of it seemed familiar to me. So my caution is that this is a good introduction, but for those well versed in Byzantium, the Renaissance, and so on, the book may seem light.

This book traces the Byzantine Empire's influence on Western society, Islamic society, and Eastern Orthodox society. It is well written, although clearly intended for a popular, as opposed to a scholarly, audience. I found the sections on the Islamic world and the Eastern Orthodox world particularly interesting, since I'm less familiar with that history than I am with the Western history. However, I was disappointed that Wells didn't make the case that Byzantium continues to influence our world. He seems to think Byzantium's influence disappeared within a few generations, but he never really explains why.

Subtitle: How a Lost Empire Shaped the World
Audible Plus 9 hours 9 min. Narrated by Lloyd James (A+)

There is no way I can do this book justice without a physical copy, without which to refer. It is everything that book summary says it is and so much more. Colin Wells has written an excellently researched but also very readable book. In an audio format, this book could easily have fallen into the domain of "interminable boredom," but Lloyd James made this book come alive for me. A definite 4.5 stars for me!

The book is written in three understandable sections. The first is how the church of Constantinople was able to recognize the necessity of consurving the ancient Greek and Latin books, their grammars, and their ability to read them for posterity. The monks in monesteries maintained vast libraries of originals. importantly, reproductions. When Venice and Florence and in Italy began to grow and flourish and trade with Constantinople began to flourish, these texts were taken back to Italy. A first Renaissance began there with the growth of the Roman Catholic church.

The second section relates the beginnings of the Arab culture first in Syria and then in Baghdad. Here, the process was repeated. Thus, even Arabic culture was influenced by the writings of the Greeks and Romans.

The third section had me taking notes that are too convoluted to try to reproduce. It began with the sacking of Constantinople in 860 AD by the Bulgars, an obscure Slavic tribe to the north. After Constantinople recovered, this opened a conduit of Greek orthodox religion and its accompanied art and books into Bulgaria, then into Serbia, Kiev, and finally into Russia. As part of the Western world, we owe a huge debt to one major civilization for conserving the languages of Greek and Latin through the monks and monasteries wherever Byzantium took it.

I came across this gem of a book through a Goodreads review. History is so important to our understanding of how God chose to spread His Word.

A very well written book. I liked the book, its style, and its flowing read. It is nonfiction. Constantinople is the epicenter and the narrative is divided into three major spheres of impact; West (Rome and Athens), Islam, and the Slavs. Interesting...............

After taking way too much time to finish this, I can happily say it is completed.

Non-fiction at its core, Sailing from Byzantium lives up to its title – it is indeed a deep dive into how the defunct empire shaped the world around it and for generations beyond. If you are reading this for pleasure and aren’t a history major (or a Byzantine fanatic), you are going to be sorely let down. It’s a slog to get through and it’s often better to forget about the specific names and instead grasp the overall look of the landscape before you. If you can get over those things, and that it nearly reads like a textbook, you’ll be fine.

Well written and well put together, this book encompasses the entirety of the empire and then some. Due to the superb writing, you can see the tendrils of the Byzantines slowly creep out and have their effects on nearly all of Europe. Its power was enough to hit Renaissance Italy, Islam, and many of the Slavic lands – and this book encompasses all of them.

By the end of the book, I found that I had learned a great deal about Byzantium, though I don’t think I would pick this one up again.

A quick read that gives a little flavor to the Middle Ages, a period I don't normally appreciate in terms of European History. It'll get you from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the Renaissance with a good amount of intellectual ferment and Mediteranean opulence, while avoiding the gratuitous beheadings, filth and fratricide of Western Europe.