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Sailing from Byzantium: How a Lost Empire Shaped the World

Colin Wells

3.88 · Rating details · 783 ratings · 105 reviews

A gripping intellectual adventure story, Sailing from Byzantium sweeps you from the deserts of Arabia to the dark forests of northern Russia, from the colorful towns of Renaissance Italy to the final moments of a millennial city under siege….

Byzantium: the successor of Greece and Rome, this magnificent empire bridged the ancient and modern worlds for more than a thousand y ...more

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Paperback, 368 pages

Published July 31st 2007 by Delacorte Press (first published 2006)

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Jul 18, 2011 Lyn rated it liked it · review of another edition

Cool book, I realized how little I knew about the Byzantine Empire.

Scholarly yet approachable and at times entertaining, it can also be pedantic and thick. Segmented into Constantinople's influence on Western Europe, Islam and Russia.

A refreshingly erudite work that was also fun to read.

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Sep 07, 2013 Jane rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, reviewed, library, byzantine-empire

This book was fantastic!! The subtitle says it all. No, it's not a political history of the Byzantine Empire, but one narrowly focused on the valuable culture and Greek classical learning Byzantium has passed on to three major civilizations:

Western Europe, beginning with Italy and eventually spreading to the rest of Europe;
Arabs and their successor, the Ottoman Empire;
Slavic nations, from Bulgaria to Russia.

There are few of the "famous" people you would expect. For that you would need a more ...more

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Jun 13, 2013 Kevin rated it liked it

Shelves: historical-non-fiction

A great primer dealing with the role of the Eastern Roman Empire, otherwise known as Byzantium. This is one area and period of History that I knew so little about (never covered it at Uni, or at least only briefly touching the edges), basically just knowing about the schism between the East and Western Churches - the Orthodox and Catholic. However, the book is not really a history of Byzantium per se, but rather details the influence it held over the religious and educational development in Euro A great primer dealing with the role of the Eastern Roman Empire, otherwise known as Byzantium. This is one area and period of History that I knew so little about (never covered it at Uni, or at least only briefly touching the edges), basically just knowing about the schism between the East and Western Churches - the Orthodox and Catholic. However, the book is not really a history of Byzantium per se, but rather details the influence it held over the religious and educational development in Europe and the Middle East, covering the West, the effect on the rise of the Islamic Middle East and, for what I think is the most long standing legacy, the rise of the Slavic Rus, helping and actively encouraging the development of Russia as a unified nation (carrying on the legacy and being known in time as the 'Third Rome'). Without the Eastern Roman Empire surviving when Rome was sacked (and it survived for almost a millennia longer, till 1453), then we would not have many early books and texts surviving from Ancient Greece and much important learning would have been lost forever.

The book is more or less a cultural and religious study, explaining the divide between Western and Eastern religious thought (explaining the Hesychast debate for instance) and the most important historical figures involved throughout Byzantine's history. It held and incorporated the legacy of the Greeks, and its teachers became widely recognised and sought after for their translations, both amongst the Latin Christians and the Islamic Scholars. Islam became such a progressive movement in its early stage of growth with developments in science, expanding and developing what the early Greek Scholars started, and without the Byzantine translators then this could not have happened. Likewise amongst the Catholics in Florence and Rome, Byzantine Scholars were often invited to teach, to impart their knowledge such was the respect they held. However, Colin Wells' book is short and contains no great depth into certain periods and events - hardly mentioning the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1453 and what happened afterwards, but does discuss the Fourth Crusade and the sacking in 1204 (the beginning of the end of such a powerful, grandiose and dare I say, beautiful city); it must be seen as a primer and I suppose it succeeds in this task. There is a considerable bibliography however which is always useful and much needed here. The book has whetted my inquisitve appetite to read more regarding this almost 'mystical' and exotic Empire.

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Jun 07, 2011 James Murphy rated it really liked it

I hadn't known Byzantium was so important. Wells's book relates how, in the centuries following the end of the Roman Empire, Byzantium, the surviving portion in the east, continued to influence the Mediterranean world and the Middle East, as well as Russia and the Balkans. By preserving Greek culture and transporting it to those areas, Byzantium made possible the philosophic, religious, and artistic movements behind the Renaissance, the era of Arabic science and learning, and the rise of Russian ...more

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Apr 06, 2008 James rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

An interesting little book about the influence of the Byzantine empire on Western Europe, Islam, and the Slavs. Each is addressed chronologically in its own section. I found the sections of the book about Islam and the Slavs very compelling. Each section, however, suffers from an annoying characterstic: devolution into a flood of names of obscure historical personalities by its conclusion. But other than that, a great book.

(And on a personal note, this book did a great job of depicting the begin ...more

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Jan 21, 2009 Mike rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Byzantium's cultural legacy, as it affected societies arising in Western European, Islamic, and Slavic/Russian lands. The Byzantine Empire was not brief, and its decline was long and resisted to the end. Much in the way one may fashion a drinking cup from the skull of a favorite enemy, this empire did not simply vanish.

Part one shows how the intellectual capital of ancient Greece was preserved by the Byzantines. As their empire weakened they retreated into a mysticism at odds with Greek rational Byzantium's cultural legacy, as it affected societies arising in Western European, Islamic, and Slavic/Russian lands. The Byzantine Empire was not brief, and its decline was long and resisted to the end. Much in the way one may fashion a drinking cup from the skull of a favorite enemy, this empire did not simply vanish.

Part one shows how the intellectual capital of ancient Greece was preserved by the Byzantines. As their empire weakened they retreated into a mysticism at odds with Greek rationalism. Unwelcome at home, many scholars found a more appreciative clime in nearby Italy. Those cultural refugees, their numbers bolstered by the mass exodus of eggheads precipitated by the fall of Constantinople, helped forge the humanism of the Italian Renaissance.

This part relies pretty heavily on biographical detail to substantiate its premise; I wasn't so keen on that.

Part two focuses an the bits borrowed by the Islamic societies that contested with, and eventually overwhelmed, Byzantium. The Dome of the Rock captures in architecture the pomp borrowed by an upstart imperialism from an older one. As the Arabs unified under their great God, and fused together into a great people, they needed to dispense with their early disdain for the trappings of wealth and cloak their new-found power in earthly majesty. Later on they would forget the Byzantines and borrow from the Persians, or make their own way.

Also in part two is an examination of how Greek rationalism (translated into Arabic from Byzantine sources) co-existed or conflicted with Islamic mysticism. Things came to a head in the 9th century. With the backing of many faylasufs (philosophers), one al-Mamun undertook a rationalist inquisition called the Mihna. One of those imprisoned and tortured during that time was Ahmad ibn Hanbal. During the brief time after his release and before his death he went on to found the Hanbali school of sharia law, the main source of today's Wahabi Islam and the ideological substrate of al-Qaeda. Torturing people is bad, okay?

Part three covers the Byzantine-sponsored conversion of the then relatively undeveloped peoples of Eastern Europe and Russia to Orthodox Christianity. As the pagans converted to Christianity the Latin church of Rome competed with the Orthodox church based in Constantinople for the hearts, minds, souls, and, ultimately, the armies of the Slavic world.

I have a friend whose heart is full of murder. Something a long time ago killed his soul. He reads histories like these looking for the echoes of an adversary, some malignant outline that he might conjure into reality and punish. Poor fool. ...more

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Jul 04, 2011 David Berry rated it liked it · review of another edition

I enjoyed this book but would have liked it much more if it did not claim to do something it doesn't.

It was fascinating to learn how Plato's dialogues wound their way to Florence through immigrant and exiled Byzantine scholars. And it was equally fascinating to learn how the Umayyad scholars preserved Greek philosophy even after the Byzantines banned or suppressed it. This is a tale of scholars, and a good one, but it is not really a chronicle of the Byzantine Empire's historical influence. It ...more

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Jul 25, 2011 Glyn Longden rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Rating: 6/10. The author's intended purpose was to write a book which was accessible to the general reader. The problem is that the history of the Byzantine Empire is full of obscure religious and philosophical issues which, did, in fact, have an important role to play in its history. You wonder how an Empire, which seemed so incapable if defending itself and constantly refused to make important security decisions actually lasted for a thousand years. The three main issues in the book are Byzant ...more

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Sep 03, 2020 Valentin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: bizanț, istorie, roman-empire

At one point I wanted to give this book three stars, but the last part, about the Slavic Christianity, redeemed it partially for me. As an eastern orthodox I confess I cannot comprehend the author's deep bias toward orthodoxy in general and hesychasm in particular and the constant politicization of a spiritual current (hesychasm) that was as separated from politics as a spiritual movement can possibly be. It is obvious that the author has some understanding of what the hesychasm actually is, but ...more

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May 15, 2010 smboro rated it liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: maybe

Recommended to smboro by: my own find on the topic

I think it’s an interesting book that should have been titled “Sailing from Byzantium, How a Lost Empire Shaped the 19th and 20th centuries Briths fancy for Greece.” This book is a difficult read and the fact that (for some unknown the reader reason) the historical timeline is scrambled (if not confused) makes it even more difficult.

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Nov 05, 2018 Birgitta Hoffmann rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: language-and-translation, byzantine-history, orthodox-church, renaissance-studies, islamic-culture

Three linked essays about the links between Byzantine culture and the influence on its neighbours: Renaissance Europe, Umayyad and Abbasid Kalifate and the Bulgarian, Serb and Russian Orthodox churches.
Well written and accessible, but laden with information and names, great way into the topic.

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Oct 19, 2018 Evan Hays rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: general-history

This book brought many different pieces that have been bouncing around in my head for the last decade or two into the same historical narrative, and it is a book I will return to again in the future I am sure. Sure, it covers a vast swath of history, and therefore could be probably fairly criticized for generalizing too often, but I would say in return that it should rather be praised for being so bold as to weave the different strains of time and place together the way that it did.

The book is b This book brought many different pieces that have been bouncing around in my head for the last decade or two into the same historical narrative, and it is a book I will return to again in the future I am sure. Sure, it covers a vast swath of history, and therefore could be probably fairly criticized for generalizing too often, but I would say in return that it should rather be praised for being so bold as to weave the different strains of time and place together the way that it did.

The book is broken down into three parts, each focusing on the influence of the Byzantine Empire and its Greek (Athens, metaphorically) and Orthodox (Jerusalem, metaphorically) cultures. The first part is about the influence of Byzantium on the Renaissance in Italy, and this section is the closest thing I have found so far to answer my question about how exactly ancient greek texts like the Odyssey were preserved up to modern times. The second part, about which I knew the most from my own scholarship in grad school, is about the influence of Byzantium on the Arab and Muslim worlds. The argument here was nothing new to me, but I had much more to possibly criticize here based on my own experience and reading, but didn't find much to criticize. And then the third part was about the influence of especially the Orthodox element of Byzantium on the Slavic world. I know a good bit about this from a ecclesiastical and theological perspective, but not from a historical perspective, so this was probably the most interesting part of the book to me. I enjoyed learning about the context for Rublev's iconography (he is the favorite iconographer in our household, and I spent time looking at his icons every day). This third section was also particularly timely because of the recent news that the head of the Orthodox Church in Moscow has severed ties with the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople. For a few days there, it almost seemed like what I was reading in the news and what I was reading in the book about the history of the Orthodox world in the late 1300s could have easily been swapped.

I often found myself thinking, "will he leave this or that out?" Every time I thought about something like this, he did discuss what I thought was missing. A few examples of this include the influence of Alexandria on spreading Hellenism (not just Constantinople), the role of Mt. Athos, or the importance of non-Chalcedonian Christianity (Arianism, Nestorianism, and Monophysitism in particular).

Because I had a pretty decent background for each section (even Hesychasm-Orthodox mysticism which is an important theme through the whole book-is something I have read about in some detail), this book meant a lot to me. If you don't have that background already, you would likely find this book frustrating for how it touched on subjects but then didn't explain them in much detail. But to be fair, if it had, the book would have been like 2,000 pages long.

In a lot of ways this book for me is sort of like how you bookmark websites or favorite tweets that you want to come back and read later. I know I can return to this book to remind me of topics that I still don't know much about but want to delve into later, like the Council of Florence for example, which sort of weakly rejoined Eastern and Western Christianity in the context of the last couple of decades leading up to the fall of Constantinople. You sure would think that after the Latins destroyed Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade in the early 13th century that the Byzantines would have abandoned ever looking west for political and military support, but such were the intrigues of Byzantine dynastic succession conflicts and such were the threats from various Slavic and Muslim invaders, that the Byzantines never really seemed to learn that lesson.
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Jan 19, 2018 Tim rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: history

A short book summarizing Byzantium’s influence on Western Europe, Islam, and Slavic countries. Fairly easy to read, it works reasonably as a summary and reference book.

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Dec 27, 2014 Stephen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: eastern-rome-byzantine, history, russia, middle-east, islam, literature, medieval, eastern-europe

Isaac Asimov referred to Byzantium as a forgotten empire, lost and dismissed to the western mind as a decayed remnant of a once-great power. But Byzantium had a greatness of its own that inspired civilizations around it, even its enemies. Sailing from Byzantium examines the literary, political, scientific, and other influences the Eastern empire had on the western Renaissance, Eastern Europe, and even the nascent Islamic civilization. Though somewhat impaired by being name-dense and not giving Isaac Asimov referred to Byzantium as a forgotten empire, lost and dismissed to the western mind as a decayed remnant of a once-great power. But Byzantium had a greatness of its own that inspired civilizations around it, even its enemies. Sailing from Byzantium examines the literary, political, scientific, and other influences the Eastern empire had on the western Renaissance, Eastern Europe, and even the nascent Islamic civilization. Though somewhat impaired by being name-dense and not giving sketch of the Byzantines in brief, Sailing does deliver a sense of the eastern empire as an inspirational fount during the long millennium that followed its western antecedent's demise. The three civilizations drinking from its waters took different elements of the Empire home with them, with some sharing; to the Italians, Byzantium was the temple of Greek civilization, its scholars the teachers of the first medieval humanists, including by extension Erasmus. Islam cut its imperial teeth when it seized some of the East's richest provinces, and Byzantine notions about politics, law, and the aesthetics of royalty became incorporated into the Islamic civilization as it came of age. This lessened somewhat after the conquest of Persia, pursued after Constantinople proved too tough to crack. The Russians, too, were initially rivals of their southern neighbors, making their introduction with a good old-fashioned Black Sea raid; having common enemies and rivals, however, pushed the two together, and as the tribe of Russians matured into a state of their own, their religion was that of Byzantium's. Later, once Constantinople had fallen to the Turks, Russia would even claim to be the inheritors of the Empire; just as it moved from Rome to Constantinople, so it now had moved to the third Rome, Moscow. The marriage of a Russian potentate to a Byzantine princess even attempted to give such a claim practical validation. In examining the Byzantine influence on these three powers in turn, Wells not only demonstrates the richness of its culture, but pries open worlds probably mysterious to western readers, connecting exotic history with some slightly more familiar. It's quite fascinating, though readers would be better served reading an overview of Byzantine history before launching in. ...more

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Jul 02, 2016 Robert Bruening rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I've temporarily book this book on hold in favor of better reading and may never pick it up again. The general historical outline it has laid out so far is interesting, but the author relies too much on bad historical stereotypes in his narrative. Example: The Crusaders are out to steal whatever they can. The Venetians will sell anyone down the river for a buck.

A good example is his discussion of the First Crusade. He notes that the Crusaders betrayed their agreements to the Byzantine Emperor ...more

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Aug 04, 2011 Jacob Aitken added it

This was an attempt to shed light on a forgotten aspect of history. Most westerners, when they think of Rome, think of the Western empire. In terms of religion, the debate is between Protestants and catholics. Wells (and others) open a new page of history for us.

Wells divides his work into three sections. He shows how Byzantium influenced and was influenced by the Romans, The Muslims, and the Slavs. And at the end of each epoch of Byzantine history, Wells shows how causes that led to Byzantium's ...more

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Mar 29, 2011 Themistocles rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history

This is a fascinating, but at times difficult (or downright boring) book. While it does a great work presenting the influence and its routes from Byzantium to its neighbors, there are several parts where the book is just names after names, travels after travels where I found my mind wondering off.

Still, a unique subject and a unique book.

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Jul 26, 2015 David Myers rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history

"Sailing for Byzantium" is an explicit account of the history of the eastern Roman empire as well as its leaders and the culture that developed there. A very dense book with some tough sledding in parts, yet I highlighted more lines within it's pages than I have in a long time. I will use this book for future reference. ...more

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Sep 03, 2011 Maria rated it really liked it

Simply written, not too complex, excellent history for the person who has no previous knowledge of the subject.

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Apr 27, 2012 Karen E Carter rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Disappointing. Will I ever find a book about the Byzantine Empire that is readable, scholarly, and thesis driven? This certainly isn't it. ...more

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Aug 06, 2019 Nathan Albright rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: challenge-2019

I don't know where I became someone who reads a lot of books on Byzantium, but there are a lot of books on that medieval society [1], and I somehow find myself reading a few of them also. In general, these books seek to demonstrate the importance of the Byzantine Empire to the contemporary Western world in one way or another, and this book certainly fits within that trend. After all, why would one read about an empire that ended lamentably and definitively in 1453, decades before Columbus sail I don't know where I became someone who reads a lot of books on Byzantium, but there are a lot of books on that medieval society [1], and I somehow find myself reading a few of them also. In general, these books seek to demonstrate the importance of the Byzantine Empire to the contemporary Western world in one way or another, and this book certainly fits within that trend. After all, why would one read about an empire that ended lamentably and definitively in 1453, decades before Columbus sailed the ocean blue, unless the empire had some importance on the way we currently live. This particular book is a relatively short one and certainly a very well-written one, and it certainly justifies the intents of its author to let the reader know about the importance of the Byzantine influence on surrounding peoples, even if that influence was not always straightforward. And that lack of straightforwardness is not necessarily a disadvantage, as it allows the author to tell a fascinating story that has some surprising relevance when one examines the question of pietism within different religious traditions.

This book is about 300 pages long and is focused on looking at the influence of the Byzantine empire and its scholarship and knowledge of Greek philosophical thinking on the West, Arabs, and the Slavic world. The book begins with an introduction to major characters, a concurrent timeline of the four worlds the author is discussing, maps, an introduction, and a prologue that sets up a controversy between philosophical and pietist Byzantines that led to a fatal division of the empire in the 14th century. After that the author spends five chapters discussing the relationship between Byzantium and the West (I), discussing the parting of the ways (1) between the West and Byzantium in the early Middle Ages, the struggle within the Byzantine Empire between Athens and Jerusalem (2), the early instruction of Greek to the humanist elite of Renaissance Italy (3), how these efforts increased (4), and the importance of Byzantine emigres to the development of the Italian humanist culture of the 15th century (5). After that the author discusses the relationship between Byzantine culture and the Arab world (II), with three chapters that deal with the efforts of the Arabs to establish a new Byzantium (6), the house of wisdom through translation (7), and the Arabic enlightenment (8). Finally, the author discusses in eight chapters the relationship between the Byzantine Empire and the Slavic World (III), with chapters on the threat of invasion (9), the mission of Cyril and Methodius (10), wars of emulation between the Bulgars and the Byzantines (11), the Serbs and others (12), the rise of Kiev (13), the golden age of Kievan Rus (14), the rise of Moscow (15), and Moscow's role as the third Rome (16), after which the epilogue discusses the last Byzantine and there is an author's note, acknowledgements, notes, bibliography, and index.

There are several different layers of this author's particular discussion. One of them, the surface layer, is to discuss that Byzantine expertise in holding on to the Greek philosophical tradition and its texts allowed these texts to dramatically influence the development of the Italian and Arab Renaissance periods. Additionally, Byzantine attitudes towards encouraging national churches in the local vernacular languages allowed its influence to spread throughout the Eastern European slavic peoples, dividing them from the influence of Rome with its more imperial use of the Latin language in liturgy. Beyond this, though, the author is making a subtle but definitely pointed attack on pietism as an approach, viewing it as a weakening force in the loyalty that people felt to beleaguered states like the late Byzantine Empire that were fighting for their survival by privileging a sense of religious purity over engaging in the actions that would be necessary for survival in the face of the hostility of the Turks. Pietism privileges personal morality over the compromises of the political or geopolitical world, and hence those who hold to a pietistic belief tend to ultimately be hostile to political savvy and the sacrifices that are necessary to get along with others in the sake of building coalitions, which the author views as a major negative, along with the pietistic hostility to philosophy that tends to exist as well.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... ...more

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Dec 07, 2017 Bob Newman rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, greece

The gifts of Greeks

Byzantium disappeared from the maps in 1453 when it was conquered by the Turks. It had been on the skids for some time previously. Constantinople became Istanbul and though all us kids studied Rome in detail, our teachers tended to skip over Byzantium in a few sentences, if they mentioned it at all. But for many centuries the second Rome, the Rome of the East, shone brightly as a beacon of civilization as Europe went through the Dark Ages. As a great civilization of its time, The gifts of Greeks

Byzantium disappeared from the maps in 1453 when it was conquered by the Turks. It had been on the skids for some time previously. Constantinople became Istanbul and though all us kids studied Rome in detail, our teachers tended to skip over Byzantium in a few sentences, if they mentioned it at all. But for many centuries the second Rome, the Rome of the East, shone brightly as a beacon of civilization as Europe went through the Dark Ages. As a great civilization of its time, Byzantium would have had influences on surrounding areas, as all great civilizations do. But what exactly would these have been ? To tell the truth, before I read Colin Wells' book, I had very little idea.

Byzantium's influence spread in three different directions, in three different ways. First, the victorious Arabs arrived in the Fertile Crescent and Egypt, taking over from the erstwhile Byzantine rulers. The style they adopted, once they realized that they were no longer a nomadic, desert people without cities, owed a lot to the Byzantines, both in architecture and in political regime. But the larger Byzantine influence was to provide the rising Muslim power with knowledge---in science, medicine, and philosophy---the knowledge that fueled the flowering of Islamic civilization in the 8th and 9th centuries in Damascus and Baghdad. Though Islam eventually turned away from such knowledge to its own detriment, the mass of Arabic translations from Greek, aided by Byzantine scholars, helped in turn to re-seed knowledge gleaned by the ancient Greeks in western Europe at a later time. Second, in the 150 years before Byzantium's end, intellectual activity had begun to stir in Italy. Almost all classical literature in Greek had been lost, thanks to nearly 1000 years of invasions and wars. Even if Italian scholars could get their hands on Greek manuscripts, they couldn't read them. A few Byzantine scholars began to travel to Italy to teach Greek and to spread Byzantine philosophical trends of different kinds. Moves even were made to reunite the Orthodox and Catholic churches, though none were successful. After Byzantium fell, many Greek scholars took refuge in Venice or other parts of Italy. The whole European humanist school of philosophy, with its reliance on Plato and its subsequent influence on Catholic thinkers, can be traced to the debates in Byzantium between those who favored "Athens" (humanist tradition) and those who backed "Jerusalem" (stricter interpretation of religion). Third, Byzantium engaged in a long struggle with the Slavic peoples who invaded the Balkan peninsula as early as the 400s. Among these numbered the Bulgars and the Serbs. Over time, these peoples adopted Orthodox Christianity and in turn became a conduit to spread the religion further, to the outer Slav peoples in Ukraine and Russia. Wells relates a long, extremely complex tale of how Russia came to adopt the faith of Byzantium and become, at last, the "Third Rome". The type of Orthodoxy that they accepted meant that mysticism would dominate, rather than humanism as in the case of the West.

The overall topic, then, is "what contributions did Byzantium make to world history". Even if you are not fascinated by schools of philosophy and positions on the nature of Christianity, you will be able to follow and appreciate Wells's work because this is one of the clearest history books I've ever read. It has a number of excellent maps also (always a plus). The section about Russia gets bogged down in a sea of names for a while, but you will be able to navigate through. Humor marks the pages, and a rather informal, rather than `heavy academic' style predominates. I suspect SAILING FROM BYZANTIUM will influence more people than most previous books on the subject. ...more

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May 04, 2017 Karl Arney rated it liked it · review of another edition

I learned a fair deal from this and found cerain parts, especially in the first two parts, to be fairly interesting. I read enough before starting to not expect a conventional history of Byzantium, so the focus was no issue.

With that said, the endless torrent of names Wells throws at you through much of the book can be a bit overwhelming, far too numerous for readers to be expected to remember all but the most interesting/important of them. The latter parts of Part III, on Byzantium's influence I learned a fair deal from this and found cerain parts, especially in the first two parts, to be fairly interesting. I read enough before starting to not expect a conventional history of Byzantium, so the focus was no issue.

With that said, the endless torrent of names Wells throws at you through much of the book can be a bit overwhelming, far too numerous for readers to be expected to remember all but the most interesting/important of them. The latter parts of Part III, on Byzantium's influence on the development of the Slavic world, represent this at its most tedious (from around the time Moscow is emerging as the leading city in the region).

Still, the large opening part on Byzantium and the West is pretty fascinating in its pursuit of the book's main goal - sharing the story of Byzantine Humanists' salvation of Hellenistic learning and the inter-European political/spiritual infighting that accompanied it. It's this section that provides many of the most memorable figures, drawn largely from the Humanists, such as Barlaam of Calabria, John Bessarion, and the towering Manuel Chrysoloras, with a vibrant background cast of historical titans including Byzantine emperors and the Medicis. You get a well-developed feel for the connections between East and West and the ebbing and flowing of both political power and philosophical trends, which are frequently intertwined. I'd say its the most engaging narrative here, which Wells must agree with since it's easily the largest section.

The Arab/Byzantine section has similar potential, but is oddly stunted/condensed. I came in expecting to be really interested by the Slavic section, which I knew least about, and it does serve as an effective contrast to the Western section, making the Hesychasts who I saw as the antagonists of the Western section read like the protagonists in Greater Russia. The early parts of the section give useful insight into the formation of the Slavic world, but by the end I felt burned out, bored, and eager to be done...maybe because I had a hard time caring about or rooting for anybody or maybe because it had all just become too dry.

Overall this is an informative and ambitious book (trying to make such dense, sprawling material work as a casually readable edition), which score a mixed bag of success and failure. The timelines, maps, and "who's who" at the book's front are nearly essential tools, suggesting that the author or his editors realized what a tangle of names and stories they created. ...more

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Mar 28, 2010 Dan rated it liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to Dan by: George Dobbs

This book traces the export of Byzantine culture–both humanist and religious–in three directions: to the West, initially via Italy, to the Muslim cultures in the near east, and to the Slavic lands, primarily Bulgaria and Russia, but others as well. These exports are presented as a kind of life after death for the Byzantine Empire, which terminated politically and geographically when the Turks took Constantinople in 1453 and turned it into beautiful Istanbul, graced now with elegant minarets as w This book traces the export of Byzantine culture–both humanist and religious–in three directions: to the West, initially via Italy, to the Muslim cultures in the near east, and to the Slavic lands, primarily Bulgaria and Russia, but others as well. These exports are presented as a kind of life after death for the Byzantine Empire, which terminated politically and geographically when the Turks took Constantinople in 1453 and turned it into beautiful Istanbul, graced now with elegant minarets as well as impressive domes and columns.

As Wells presents the case, Byzantine exports fell in two general categories. One export or influence was the humanist thought in the narrow sense of ancient Greek and Latin literature and philosophy, but, as I read it, also with the implications that secular thought is worthwhile. The transmitters of this thought, with concentration in Aristotle and Plato, were a surprisingly small number of individuals who ignited others, especially in Italy, but enough in Islamic societies to inspire the Arab translations and preservation of the ancients. Humanist thought seems notably missing in the Slavic arena.

The other category of Byzantine influence was artistic and religious. Wells characterizes the artistic merits by the (religious) frescos in Istanbul’s Church of the Chora, which are indeed impressive. Even more so the frescos in Ravenna made during Theodoric’s time as Exarch. But I personally can’t forget the sterility of the icons, the individually painted but mass produced look- alike pictures of Jesus that were so happily superseded by real art once Giotto hit the scene Italy. I take it that the lasting artistic influence was in the slavic lands like Russia and to some extent and briefly in the Islamic world, which for a while used architecture as western powers did-- to symbolize great power. The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem is the major example.

The religious exports were different. Art and architecture can directly affect politics, as when they are used for propaganda and when they are used to demonstrate wealth and power. Religion can have more direct uses in supporting a particular regime or a particular policy of the governing powers through its prestige or through its carrots and sticks of eternal paradise or damnation. Wells does not explain how much, if any, of the influence of the Orthodox Byzantine church derived from threats of damnation so common in the West. But, as we know from familiar Western history, religion and secular power do usually support each other–the Pope crowned Charlemagne and Charlemagne supported the Pope with secular might. Wells tells us how this worked as Byzantine Orthodox religion managed to save itself form Western and Catholic domination and to export itself to Russia and other Slavic lands in a period when Russia was just beginning to form. That particular story begins with the power of the Orthodox Byzantine religion, still influenced from Constantinople, lending legitimacy to Russian rulers, and ends with the rulers dominating the Orthodox religion to use it for their own political purposes.

The two categories, I’ll call them religion and humanism, were to some extent at war with one another, and that is an interesting substory. Wells speaks of it metaphorically as the conflict between Athens and Jerusalem, although it does not appear to me that humanism stayed true to Athens once it flowered in Italy or that religion stayed true to what I take Wells to mean by Jerusalem once it became important to define true Christians precisely so that could get Constantine’s tax subsidy. At any rate, the monks, who came to be a big force in Byzantium, invented a kind of religious revival or renewal called Hesychasm that involved meditation, controlled breathing and repetitious prayer–self-hypnosis to unbelievers, I suppose. This was supposed to lead to theosis. Not a word we hear so much in the West, but it is known in some religious thinking. It refers to a claimed mystical union with God, where the human individual is actually absorbed into God’s “energy” if not God’s “essence.” Western mention of this idea like to use the watered down version–the human individual “partakes” of God (maybe for good reasons–it’s pretty strong stuff, this theosis).

The most interesting thing is that the monks and their mysticism grew to be enormously influential, to the point that humanists in reaction began to visit the West. This was part of the flow that drove the Renaissance, introduced or re-introduced the thought of Greece. And led to many conversions by Byzantine humanists to the Catholic Church.

Another substory of interest, whose significance is celebrated in this book but not really proven in detail, is the effects of the unique Slavic alphabet and language. Wells says it intellectually and religiously isolated the Slavic lands and also protected them–from domination by the Western thought and religion. The language and alphabet was the creation of Byzantine missionaries, Cyril and Methodius, and Wells tells that part of the tale well, but it would have been interesting to me to see him support with details, examples, and connections just how and to what extent this worked as an isolating factor that permitted self-development.

This book is reader-friendly. It is a popular book, not one of original scholarship; but Wells brings existing original scholarship of other to general readers in prose that is easy to follow (except for the hundreds of unfamiliar, very foreign-sounding names). Wells also includes up front a list of 40 or 50 major characters to help you keep track of all those names. He also gives readers several actual maps in case they have not memorized geography of the middle ages and renaissance. Cheers to him and Bantum Dell/Random House for this rare decency in publishing. (And yes, I do mean to imply that publishers who do not include needed maps are not doing the right thing.) Wells also provides detailed notes that most people won’t use, and a Timeline table that many people will. The table gives comparative headlines of conditions in Byzantium, the West, the Islamic and the Slavic world between the 6th century and the fall of Constantinople. I found the index useful, except that humanism was not an entry, perhaps because references were so pervasive. ...more

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Nov 09, 2017 Caotico09 rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

It is hard to rate a book like this- i guess it depends on what information you want to learn. "Sailing from Byzantium" is a short brief look at how ERE influenced the West, the Islamic World, and the Slavic world.

As a starting point/introduction to ERE the book is decent. It quickly lays out the important conquests and events from 500-1400 while paying extra attention to the study and spread of philosophy (Plato/Aristotle) and religion. In these aspects the book is good and gives a number of st ...more

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Feb 04, 2018 John Strange rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history

This is not a book about the history of the Byzantine empire or the city of Constantinople. It is a book focused on the effect of the Byzantine culture on its neighbors both before and after the fall of the city.

Although detailed, Sailing from Byzantium is clearly meant for the enthusiastic reader with some exposure to Byzantine history. The scholar or very casual reader might not be as satisfied; the author does not go into great depth on specific cultural and religious aspects nor does he chr ...more

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Sep 21, 2020 Terry Simmons-albertson rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is a great book for lovers of history. The capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, was located in what is now Istambul, Turkey. Constantinople was the capital city of the Roman Empire (330–395), the Byzantine Empire (395–1204 and 1261–1453), the brief Crusader state known as Latin Empire (1204–1261), and the Ottoman Empire (1453–1923). The Byzantine Empire was the seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church, (and later the foundation upon which the Russian Orthodox Church was founded), and ...more

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Nov 20, 2019 Sarah rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, non-fiction

I think the overall topic is interesting (and one that I knew little about) and this book takes a different perspective on the typical history of Constantinople. However, as usual for these history books, it was far too detailed for my level of interest, and I found it quite boring at times.

A caveat to my review is that I used the audiobook to put me to sleep and probably missed up to half of it as a result, meaning it was overall a more disjointed experience. However, at times it was so boring ...more

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Jul 26, 2019 Austin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Sailing from Byzantium is a history of scholarship from the ancient to modern worlds. When I discovered this book, I was so excited to jump in after reading the publicist / Goodreads description. I have to admit I was a little disappointed, put off by the first 50 or so pages. This is not the Geo-political / Military history I was expecting. But the more I read, the more engrossed and invested in the scholarly / philosophical history I became. I find the history of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byza ...more

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Mar 31, 2019 Banbury rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Much of the strength of this book is that there are so few accessible books on the Byzantine Empire and its sequelae, and this one is at least attempts to impose some order on the subject. I did learn several interesting facts, but a string of facts does not a history make. The chronology is hopelessly confusing, and there does not seem to be any guiding principal for determining which incidents receive mere mentions and which receive several pages.

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