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<![CDATA[jordan added 'How I Became a Famous Novelist']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76207479
to: How I Became a Famous Novelist (Paperback)bySteve Hely
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<![CDATA[jordan added 'Nothing Was the Same']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/75746031
to: Nothing Was the Same (Hardcover)byKay Redfield Jamison
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<![CDATA[jordan added 'Germany, 1945: From War to Peace']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/75746007
to: Germany, 1945: From War to Peace (Hardcover)byRichard Bessel
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<![CDATA[jordan added 'The Puzzle King']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/75746000
to: The Puzzle King (Hardcover)byBetsy Carter
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<![CDATA[jordan added 'The Good Soldiers']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/74994180
to: The Good Soldiers (Hardcover)byDavid Finkel
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<![CDATA[jordan added 'Generosity: An Enhancement']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/74994172
to: Generosity: An Enhancement (Hardcover)byRichard Powers
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<![CDATA[jordan added 'The White Mary: A Novel']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/74994169
to: The White Mary: A Novel (Hardcover)byKira Salak
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<![CDATA[jordan added 'Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/72916069
to: Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization (Hardcover)byLars Brownworth
Prospective readers of Lars Brownworth’s “Lost to the West” should be aware what they are getting. For those unfamiliar with Brownworth, he was made famous in a uniquely 21st century way when he produced a podcast called “12 Byzantine Rulers” a narrative retelling of 1,000 years of Roman history through the lives of 12 emperors who reigned from Constantinople. The podcasts, which were told with a mix of passion, humor, facts, and a dollop of melodrama, were a runaway hit, downloaded by over 100,000 listeners. From this success, Brownworth earned a book contract.
“Lost to the West” continues very much in the vein of the podcast. It isn’t an academic history by any stretch, but is instead what some might call with derision a “popular history.” The story is told as narrative with the same melodrama as the podcast. No reader will have a moment of trouble telling Brownworth’s anointed heroes from his villains in any of the chapters. His often shallow analysis would surely be read as laughable by serious historians, as he time and again points to decisions and battles which, if only they had gone differently, might have postponed the “Dark Ages” by “centuries” or even avoided them altogether. Likewise, as an apparently unabashed fan of the “great man” view of history, Brownworth sees the fate of the empire turning perpetually on the choices of individuals with little attention to the Empire’s severe structural deficiencies as a highly centralized autocratic economic and political system unable to readily adapt to changing circumstances. Careful readers knowledgeable about the period will also detect quite a few errors of fact in the text.
And for all that I loved the book and happily give it five stars. Condemning Brownworth for not writing an academic history would be pedantic in the extreme; his goal was plainly to write an entertaining book which would invite those unfamiliar with the Byzantine history he loves to take a quick tour and maybe even get hooked. I cannot imagine he was trying to exhaustively cover more than 1,000 years of history but was seeking to write a page turner, much as his podcast (of which I was a devoted fan) made listeners eagerly await the next episode. While likely any student producing a paper on the subject would hopefully receive a less than satisfactory grade if they based it on “Lost to the West,” readers will find endless entertainment in Brownworth’s gift for supplying salacious details and crafting larger than life characters into heroes.
While good history is rarely the stuff of good vs. evil (and Brownworth’s distaste for Persia and the Islamic east and outright distain for the Feudal west are both so plain that they drip from the page) they do make for the stuff of great reads. While one can quibble with his method as a historian, as a storyteller, he delivers a tale that will leave many wanting to know when they can expect his next work.