Sailing from Byzantium: How a Lost Empire Shaped the World [Paperback]

The previous reviewers have more or less agreed that this is an information-dense book, fitting a tremendous amount of knowledge into a compact narrative. I agree. I write only to add that the story it tells, in clear and elegant prose, is one that is almost unknown to the average educated American. The Roman Empire survived for over 1,000 years after the fall of Rome itself. The eastern portion of the Empire, governed from Constantinople, survived institutional weakness, the Persians, the Huns, the Goths, the Slavs, religious wars, almost a thousand years of attack from Islam, and the devastating impact of the Fourth Crusade that effectively destroyed the Empire as a major power, leaving only a shell of a state that weakened and diminished until the Turks finally captured the underpopulated and bravely but hopelessly defended city in 1453.

In a sense, the Eastern Empire was a buffer for the West. Without it, invasions from the east would likely have been more frequent and more consequential and the tide of Islam could well have entered Europe from the east as well as from the south.

The political narrative of the Empire is one full of tragedy and missed opportunities. The inability of the structure of its government to provide for peaceful, orderly succession (a common problem with several types of governments, including monarchies) and the amount of power held by the noble families meant that there was a great deal of political instability inherent in the Byzantine political system. This was increased by the importance of religion to the Byzantine civilization and the consequent destabilizing power of doctrinal wrangles (something almost inevitable with an orthodoctic religion). The riots over whether icons should be allowed or destroyed, the accession of emperors more devoted to religious study than maintaining the military forces that were all that stood between the empire and its many enemies, and the supreme suicidal follies that led to the disasters of Manzikert (where a substantial body of the army in effect stood by and watched as the Turks captured the emperor - a debacle that led ultimately to the loss of Anatolia and its transformation into the home of the Ottomans who finally annihilated the empire) and of the Fourth Crusade (in which a claimant to the imperial throne enlisted the Venetians to place him on the throne, a venture that led to the pillaging of the city and the destruction of the structure of the imperial government - a blow from which the empire never recovered.)

The cultural story, on the other hand, is one of preservation of the learning of ancient Greece and Rome and the carrying on of some of their traditions and inquiries. There is no single work that I know of that explores in detail the way that Byzantine philosophy, medicine, art, and creative writing moved forward from their Classical roots. To the extent that mainstream history notices such things, it notes Justinian's closure of the Academy in 529 and stops there. Leaving aside what Justinian actually did , see the discussion at http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Societies/Plato.html, this ignores hundreds of years of learning and discussion.

Wells's book offers brief look into the richness of this culture and into the way it influenced its Western (primarily Italian), Slavic, and Islamic neighbors.

It was a great pleasure to read so well thought-out and well-written a book. Those with an interest in this little-known but fascinating part of history will probably devour it as if it was a novel. I did. I hope that Wells has an in-depth cultural history of the Eastern empire up his sleeve. (And, no, I'm not Wells, have never met him or communicated with him, and have never heard of him before this book.)

Who actually saved Western Civilization? Authors have recently brought forth many claimants: the Irish, Islamic Spain, the Jews, homosexuals. One well-known author has written a semi-serious book titled "How the Plumber Saved Civilization". In "Sailing from Byzantium", Colin Wells makes a learned and convincing argument that the scholars of the Byzantine Empire deserve the true credit.

The subtitle "How a Lost Empire Shaped the World" may be an audacious one, but it gives the reader a good idea of just how comprehensive this small-format book intends to be. Most histories of Byzantium focus on either the military dynamics which slowly strangled the empire until only Constantinople remained and then itself fell to the Ottomans, or on the religious schism with the papacy that has not yet been closed. Wells treats those subjects well with fresh insights. But military and the religious divide play supporting roles to his true focus: the scholarly life of Byzantium and how it was spread to Italy, to Islam, to the Balkan nations and cultures, and, most vitally, to the emergent Russian power.

The author divides the book into three parts. In the first he covers both the preservation by Byzantine scholars of the fundamental works of Greek civilization and then the wave of humanist teachers that brought this learning to early Renaissance Italy. In his second section, Wells treats what was actually an earlier but not so permanent development: how the Arabs absorbed Byzantine learning as they conquered and settled in what had been Byzantine territory.

In Part III, the asserted civilizing power of religion takes a more dominant role as the author treats the interactions with the various Slavic migrations. His claim in the Introduction is that "the Byzantines turned the ... Slavs from uncivilized invaders into the great defenders of Orthodox Christianity." Of course the Russians were the most successful of these "Slavic invaders", and Wells' long discourse on how Russia came to be "the third Rome" could well be considered Part IV of the book.

While ideas and faiths are his main topics, Wells embodies and organizes his treatment by focusing on a long line of personalities. This is unavoidable, but the long stream of short biographical sketches of the key players, many of them unknown to non-specialists, could overwhelm. Thoughtfully, Wells has included for reference a list of "Major Characters" and a "Concurrent Timeline". This latter is especially helpful, as the text itself pays only minor heed to chronology. There is also a fine Bibliography, covering both primary and secondary sources. There are nine good maps.

Wells does not pretend to original scholarship in this book, but for most readers it will present many new and thought-provoking facts and interpretations.

A final note: although military history is not the main thrust of "Sailing from Byzantium", it cannot fail but touch on such events as they played such a large role in how Byzantine culture rose, spread, and fell. The reader may at times wish for a more comprehensive focus on this aspect. If so, I can recommend "Byzantium at War" by John Haldon.

For many of us in the West, Byzantium is an exotic mystery. Colin Wells opens up this mystery by outlining the crucial role of Byzantium in transmitting ancient Greek culture to three civilizations: the West, the Slavic East, and Islam. There is much in this history that is of relevance today as we reflect on the different roles played by these three civilizations that were shaped by Byzantium. Yes, the myriad of unfamiliar names and places are at times overwhelming; but Wells provides a list of major characters in his history to help the reader, along with a chronology and plenty of maps. For me and I suspect many others, this book opens up a previously neglected but crucial part of our history.

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