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Byzantium: The Decline and Fall | 
 enlarge | Author: John Julius Norwich
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $49.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  23 reviews
Sales Rank: 111630
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 488
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.4
Dimensions (in): 9.6 x 6.8 x 1.7
ISBN: 0679416501
Dewey Decimal Number: 949.5
EAN: 9780679416500
ASIN: 0679416501
Publication Date: November 7, 1995
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Product Description
Third volume in the series. With 32 pages of illustrations and 10 maps and tables.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 18 more reviews...
 A brilliant conclusion to a masterpiece June 22, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Norwich's final volume in his sweeping history of the Byzantine Empire is bitter-sweet. As Norwich himself recognizes in his introduction, when he concluded writing it, it was as if he was saying farewell to an old friend. I felt the same way when I read the concluding chapter.
Norwich focuses almost exclusively on political history, a reason for which I had previously deducted a star in reviews of his other works in the trilogy. Having read the entire set, it clearly warrants 5 stars, especially given his poignant concluding chapters detailing the breach of the walls of Constantinople in 1453, an epilogue of the survivors, and - as is fitting to a history that has been long overlooked and denied its place in world history - the reaction of Western Europe.
Having read Norwich's histories of the rise and zenith of Byzantium, it was oddly sad to read of its gradual decline, a death by a thousand cuts as Byzantium was beset by enemies from all directions. His account of the sacking of Byzantimum during the Fourth Crusade was particularly moving. As a historian, it is expected to remain somewhat at a distance from the period and people studied; that I had such a reaction is testament to the power of Norwich's words.
I recommend this book - and the others preceeding it - highly. There are lessons to be learned here not only about how once great and wealthy empires disintegrate and collapse, but also about the subject matter itself: the West, and indeed the world owe Byzantium much, as Norwich eloquently demonstrates.
 Superb book on a sadly neglected subject. February 8, 2008
Norwich has here filled in a gap in the body of work for the general reader. Byzantium was an important element in world affairs for a millenium and a half yeat this is the only book to deal with it. Thankfully, he does it well. His style is engaging and he does a good job of condesing all of the information. My only objection is that he could have related campaigns more thoroughly and the changing methods of warfare more than he did. He could have done this by putting less emphasis on building projects and architecture. This only a personal preference however. I strongly recommend all three volumes.
BYZANTIUM: THE DECLINE AND FALL - JOHN JULIUS NORWICH January 30, 2008
The last in the trilogy whose title again imitates Gibbons and whose style is as readable and captivating. Where Norwich differs is his deep understanding and I would say love of this much-neglected area of history and goes a great way to redressing the balance toward a better understanding of this tragic empire which so long stood as bulwark as well as a relic. No more so than its Western counterparts did it have its share of good and bad men acting heroically or venally according to character, but Norwich does go a long way to addressing the misconceptions and prejudices that Gibbon helped to nourish in the popular mind.
Well illustrated with maps and family trees to help with the confusing proliferation of dynasties
And always in the background, muffled at first but ever louder, the drum-beat of the Turk coming closer and closer.
A well written flowing account December 2, 2007
Byzantium has been a byword for declining empires and unusually useless bureaucracies. This book brings to life the Byzantine empire and its emperors. From its earliest days as a renewed Rome under Justinian to the late Byzantine empire and its troubles at the hands of Arabs, Turks and Crusaders. It also explores the religion and culture of Byzantium. However much of the narrative focuses on the leaders, such as Michael VII Palaiologos (1223-1282) and his dynasty. Michael VII was a devious and crafty leader, marrying his daughter to Mongol Nestorian allies, encouraging the Sicilian Vespers or rebellion against Charles of Anjou and assaulting the Bulgars.
In the end Byzantium crumbled but before it did it was a fascinating and incredibly long living empire. It fought the Doge of Italy and exerted influence throughout the Mediterranean and was an important confluence of east and west, an Orientalists dream, where eunuchs sold slaves to Muslims and where the greatest church in Christendom crowned the Golden Horne.
Seth J. Frantzman
a superb elegy for a relative too little loved. . . August 7, 2007
it's not that byzantium was perfect; far from it. but norwich reminds us that is was -- by any definition -- 'great.' here was a western civilization encompassing much of what contemporary sophisticates-cum-fools call the east. it was mighty, glorious, corrupt (like any human endeavor in a fallen world) and it was betrayed by covetous and stupid western rivals some of whom even acted in christianity's name. then, it was decimated by rapacious and virile eastern imperialists. net result? a half-millenium tug-of-war with islam, which europe has by no means resolved to its favor.
norwich is the rarest: a scholar and a writer at the same time. magesterial!!
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