Lost To The West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization (2009) - Plot & Excerpts
I read this while aware that it's an overview of a long and complex segment of history that I know little about. In that spirit, it's quite successful and has inspired me to order the first of the Norwich trilogy at my local library. But I did begin to wince at the repetitive descriptors Brownworth leans on. I started waiting for the next instance of "glittering," for example. A good editor could have done a lot for the writing style. Spoiler Alert: The Byzantine Empire finally collapsed in 1453...What an incredibly frustrating book. On the plus side the subect matter is great. The history of the Byzantine (or Eastern Roman) Empire is thoroughly neglected in Western Europe and this book goes some way to explaining why. It was an alien culture to most of the nascent Western nations emerging from the Dark Ages. It was ancient, cultured and sophisticated - probably decadent and declining too, the Western nations were vital and brutal and dismissive. It says a lot about our remote ancestors that they didn't see Constantinople as a bulwark against the spread of Islam and help prop it up, rather letting it fall and opening the way for Ottoman armies to reach the gates of Vienna. But this is a lightweight history. It's not even a history in the modern sense really. It reduces the story of the Byzantine Empire to a series of vignettes about its emperors as if the only forces at work were those of the personalities that sat on the throne. Yet we can see so much more than that at play even from this inadequate narrative; for instance the relationship between the empire's rapcious and greedy aristocracy and its government - the former trying to grab land from the poor and avoiding taxes has all sorts of modern echoes, and indeed echoes in the late Western Roman Empire. That dynamic is mentioned time and again but never developed, explained or explored.We never really understand how the empire is governed. We don't properly understand the impact of events like the Plague of Justinian, a global cataclysm that affected places as far apart as China and Britain where it hastened the fall of the remaining Romano British centres to the Saxons.Most telling is the fact that this is written by a history teacher rather than a fully fledged academic. It's the sort of narrative that works well with 14 year old boys, but for anyone really interested in the 'why' of history rather than a partial account of the 'what' this doesn't even start to scratch the surface.However having read this I might try to find something that looks at Byzantine history in the first millenium in greater depth because it's clear that there's something worth finding out more about.
What do You think about Lost To The West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization (2009)?
excellent and fascinating history - Belisarius must be one of the greatest generals in history.
—Dikla
Some parts maybe 4 stars...overall a good read. Never understood the Byzantine era before.
—shona329
An intriguing history, with particular attention given to the emperors of Constantinople.
—haf
AWESOME read! Really puts good perspective on on the shaping of European history
—anuska29
Most westerners know little of the Byzantine Empire. Enjoyed this book.
—sarahmarie11
