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muhavipi's review against another edition
5.0
John Julius Norwich makes history come alive. Read all you can by him and you will not regret it.
wade117's review against another edition
informative
slow-paced
3.0
Fascinating in some parts and very dull in others. I enjoyed learning about a little known period in history.
brnycx's review against another edition
5.0
a gripping, balanced, and fascinating account of the early days of the byzantine empire, packed with emperors, deceptions, thwarted ambitions, religious strife (and more rhinokopias than you can count). the author has such an eye for a good story that this book often reads like the most captivating of high-fantasy (a certain popular series in particular). stunning
zmb's review against another edition
3.0
This sort of laymen's history of emperors, battles, and xenophobia was fine in Gibbon's day but is badly out of date now.
hildegard's review against another edition
5.0
What a fantastic, fun, and informative read! I can't wait to delve into the next volume.
spacestationtrustfund's review against another edition
4.0
John Julius Norwich's Byzantine trilogy (this book, The Apogee, and The Decline and Fall) is THE definitive work. The three volumes together are around 1300 pages, although you can also read a much-abridged single volume, A Short History of Byzantium, which is only around 500 pages. Norwich's trilogy is not quite an academic work, although it is a bit heavy for the general public; even 1300 pages can't reasonably cover over a thousand years of a civilisation, particularly one with so much richness and diversity of history. You could easily fill that page space with the story of Byzantium's growth away from the Roman Empire alone. But as a general introductory overview, Norwich's trilogy is unparalleled: it is, for good reason, THE definitive work.
motifenjoyer's review against another edition
3.0
I don't usually write serious reviews, but I do want to explain my rating here since the book seems to be really well-regarded. To me, it seemed very focused on military and political history, almost exclusively discussing the succession of leaders and changes of the territory of the empire (which I'm sure is in part because it's an older book and that kind of history was more in vogue when it was written.) The book is very well-written, but the emphasis on only these areas of Byzantine history seemed reductive to me and doesn't really align with my own interests, so on a personal level, it wasn't as compelling as I'd hoped. If you're primarily interested in that type of history, though, I do recommend it!
jdanforth's review against another edition
3.0
In spite of the startling biases that the author is quite comfortable holding (in the 1970s), his storytelling is sassy and companionable, and a lot of fun to read. I love the way he quotes Gibbon as though his buddy Gibbon (who precedes Norwich by 200 years and is even more sassy) laid this quip on him the other day at dinner. It's sort of like being told the history of the Byzantine Empire by an old British university professor, waving a cigar and holding a glass of brandy, by the fire, while he punctuates the narrative with indefensible slurs or a wink and nudge that makes you uncomfortable, but you're still sitting there in awe of the effect of the setting, and of being in the presence of academic royalty. It's a little like that.
fil's review against another edition
3.0
An easily readable history of Constantinople's early history. Mainly chronological, Norwich makes coherent the sometimes dizzying succession of emperors, empresses, regents, de facto and de jure rulers and usurpers. Maddeningly too concentrated, at times, on the city itself, he does touch upon other nations, and momentous events, when they relate to the empire itself (e.g. the Western Empire, Sassanid Persia, the rise of Islam, Charlemagne).
This filled many lacunae in my scant knowledge of those years and that region. On to parts 2 and 3!
This filled many lacunae in my scant knowledge of those years and that region. On to parts 2 and 3!
msgtdameron's review against another edition
4.0
Norwich admits that this work is an over view of Byzantine history, and it meets that requirement in spades. Well written, a few writer detours in history, but not many and they add to the story, and well cited. What more could a history buff ask for. Great overview and I have already started the next in the series.