Byzantium

by Michael Angold

A concise political, social and religious history of the Byzantine empire.Michael Angold's book is a clear, concise and authoritative history of the successor state to the Roman Empire, known as the Byzantine Empire. It was named after Byzantium, which Emperor Constantine I rebuilt in 330 AD as Constantinople and made the capital of the entire Roman Empire.Angold begins in the heart of Byzantium, the city of Constantinople from which a new Empire emerged. He shows how the foundation and growth of the city altered the balance of the Roman empire, shifting the centre of gravity east. He describes the emergence of political factions and their impact on political life and traces the rise of Islam. Angold concludes his book by stressing the continuing attraction and influence of imperial Byzantium, best seen in Norman Sicily.

Genres: History

192 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 20, 2002

About the author

Michael Angold is Professor Emeritus of Byzantine history at the University of Edinburgh.

He is Editor of Cambridge History of Christianity V - Eastern Christianity (2006); and author of A Byzantine Government in Exile (1974), The Byzantine Empire 1025-1204 (1985), Church and Society in Byzantium under the Comneni 1082-1261 (1995), and The Fourth Crusade (2003).

Reviews

[Mesoscope · Rating 2 out of 5]

Angold's history of Byzantium focuses on the period between the establishment of Constantinople in the fourth century through the iconoclasm controversy, finishing up in the ninth and tenth centuries. It provides a brief overview of that period, focusing overwhelmingly on the various intrigues and machinations of the royalty and highest levels of the clergy.

It's not clear to me why this short book stops midstream, instead of spending another 75 pages or so covering the events of the latter centuries of the empire -- all the more so, given the inclusion of a long and only tangentially-related appendix on the Norman conquest of Sicily.

What is that appendix doing in this book? It makes one suspect the author had an article ready to go in his drawer and used it to pad the length.

I felt, given its brevity, that the book's focus was often misplaced - especially in the case of the baffling amount of scrutiny given to the iconoclasm controversy. Significant though that episode may have been, I was increasingly incredulous as the account went on, finding that it occupied nearly half of the book.

While this politically-significant but theologically-negligible incident receives close scrutiny, Angold devoted scarcely a word to the economy, trade, social organization, or way of life of the vast majority of the people of the empire, absorbed as he was by the drama of princes and kings.

The highlight of the book for me was his excellent account of the divisions between Byzantium and western Europe during the reign of Charlemagne.