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The Byzantine Achievement: An Historical Perspective, A.D. 330-1453
Book by Byron, Robert
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
352 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1929
7 people are currently reading
132 people want to read
About the author
Robert Byron
42 books46 followersRobert Byron was an English travel writer, best known for his travelogue The Road to Oxiana. He was also a noted writer, art critic and historian.
Byron was born in 1905, and educated at Eton and Merton College, Oxford. He died in 1941, during the Second World War, when the ship on which he was travelling was torpedoed by a U-Boat off Cape Wrath, Scotland, en route to Egypt.
Byron's The Road to Oxiana is considered by many modern travel writers to be the first example of great travel writing. It is an account of Byron's ten-month journey to Persia and Afghanistan in 1933-34 in the company of Christopher Sykes. Byron had previously travelled to widely different places; Mount Athos, India, the Soviet Union, Tibet. However it was in Persia and Afghanistan that he found the subject round which he forged his style of modern travel writing, when he later came to write up his account in Peking, his temporary home.
Writer Paul Fussell wrote in his 1982 book Abroad: British Literary Traveling Between The Wars that The Road to Oxiana is to the travel book what "Ulysses is to the novel between the wars, and what The Waste Land is to poetry." Travel writer Bruce Chatwin has described the book as "a sacred text, beyond criticism," and carried his copy "spineless and floodstained" on four journeys through central Asia.
However, in his day, Byron's travel books were outsold by those of writers Peter Fleming and Evelyn Waugh.
An appreciation of architecture is a strong element in Byron's writings and he was a forceful advocate for the preservation of historic buildings, and was a founder member of the Georgian Group. A philhellene, he was also amongst the pioneers in a reinterest in Byzantine History.
He attended the last Nuremberg Rally, in 1938, with Nazi sympathiser Unity Mitford. Byron knew her through his friendship with her sister Nancy Mitford, but he was an outspoken opponent of the Nazis. He died aged 35 in 1941 after his ship, the SS Jonathan Holt, was torpedoed by a u-boat in the North Atlantic.
Byron was born in 1905, and educated at Eton and Merton College, Oxford. He died in 1941, during the Second World War, when the ship on which he was travelling was torpedoed by a U-Boat off Cape Wrath, Scotland, en route to Egypt.
Byron's The Road to Oxiana is considered by many modern travel writers to be the first example of great travel writing. It is an account of Byron's ten-month journey to Persia and Afghanistan in 1933-34 in the company of Christopher Sykes. Byron had previously travelled to widely different places; Mount Athos, India, the Soviet Union, Tibet. However it was in Persia and Afghanistan that he found the subject round which he forged his style of modern travel writing, when he later came to write up his account in Peking, his temporary home.
Writer Paul Fussell wrote in his 1982 book Abroad: British Literary Traveling Between The Wars that The Road to Oxiana is to the travel book what "Ulysses is to the novel between the wars, and what The Waste Land is to poetry." Travel writer Bruce Chatwin has described the book as "a sacred text, beyond criticism," and carried his copy "spineless and floodstained" on four journeys through central Asia.
However, in his day, Byron's travel books were outsold by those of writers Peter Fleming and Evelyn Waugh.
An appreciation of architecture is a strong element in Byron's writings and he was a forceful advocate for the preservation of historic buildings, and was a founder member of the Georgian Group. A philhellene, he was also amongst the pioneers in a reinterest in Byzantine History.
He attended the last Nuremberg Rally, in 1938, with Nazi sympathiser Unity Mitford. Byron knew her through his friendship with her sister Nancy Mitford, but he was an outspoken opponent of the Nazis. He died aged 35 in 1941 after his ship, the SS Jonathan Holt, was torpedoed by a u-boat in the North Atlantic.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
September 11, 2018
In 2018, why read a work of Byzantium that has certainly been superseded by other more accurate histories? Foremost, we read Byron on Byzantium for the same reasons we read Norman Douglas on Calabria, or Baron Corvo on the Borgias--the pleasure of the text
January 22, 2012
Robert Byron came to my attention from "Road to Oxiana" so I tried to find other books he had written. "The Byzantine Achievement" (1929, reprinted 1987) fell into other kinds of interests I have. I was simultaneously reading a book about the emperor Justinian (482-565). I have lived in Turkey and visited Istanbul (Constantinople) several times.
Nonetheless, I found this book slow going. It's written in a discursive style and was hard to follow - eccentric but interesting. Byron emphasizes the way in which Byzantium was actually the continuation of the Roman Empire (indeed in Turkey Greece and Christians are sometimes referred to as 'Rum') and writes favorably about Orthodox Christianity (in comparison to Roman Catholicism.) Byron's original intention was to write a history of the Mediterranean from 1919-1923, itself an interesting period of the aftermath of WW I. But in the way of historical writing he kept moving back in time and this book is the result.
From a modern - early 21st century point of view - Byron's text is anti-Ottoman and anti-Turkish. Indeed 1453 is known in Turkey and the Muslim world as "The Conquest" whereas in European history it is "The Fall of Constantinople."
This is not the book to start with to learn about Late Roman/Byzantine history but for anyone who already has some knowledge and interest there is much more to learn from Byron and his take on the culture and the history.
Nonetheless, I found this book slow going. It's written in a discursive style and was hard to follow - eccentric but interesting. Byron emphasizes the way in which Byzantium was actually the continuation of the Roman Empire (indeed in Turkey Greece and Christians are sometimes referred to as 'Rum') and writes favorably about Orthodox Christianity (in comparison to Roman Catholicism.) Byron's original intention was to write a history of the Mediterranean from 1919-1923, itself an interesting period of the aftermath of WW I. But in the way of historical writing he kept moving back in time and this book is the result.
From a modern - early 21st century point of view - Byron's text is anti-Ottoman and anti-Turkish. Indeed 1453 is known in Turkey and the Muslim world as "The Conquest" whereas in European history it is "The Fall of Constantinople."
This is not the book to start with to learn about Late Roman/Byzantine history but for anyone who already has some knowledge and interest there is much more to learn from Byron and his take on the culture and the history.
June 26, 2012
This is my favorite book of all time, it has had an incredible influence on me. Byron's style is amazing, not too many authors have the audacity to write a sentence without a verb, especially an historian.
That in a nutshell is the charm of this book, it was a history book written in the 1920's which was the last time that people could write popular history that had some literary pretensions and some scholarly value. Sad, because popular history now has neither, professional historians don't take it seriously and neither do literary critics. Anyway, this book is a throw back to the era when history was art, and its quite impressive for a modern reader to take in when they have never experienced anything like it.
Obviously, being over 80 years old the book has little scholarly historical value, but it does have tremendous value as historiography. It's interesting to see a book that has influenced most modern byzantinists, and it's easy to see the influence it has had in major Byzantine historians like Vyronis and Treadgold. This book is essentially the foundation of the maximalist school of middle Byzantine history, which is actually a lot more interesting than it sounds.
That in a nutshell is the charm of this book, it was a history book written in the 1920's which was the last time that people could write popular history that had some literary pretensions and some scholarly value. Sad, because popular history now has neither, professional historians don't take it seriously and neither do literary critics. Anyway, this book is a throw back to the era when history was art, and its quite impressive for a modern reader to take in when they have never experienced anything like it.
Obviously, being over 80 years old the book has little scholarly historical value, but it does have tremendous value as historiography. It's interesting to see a book that has influenced most modern byzantinists, and it's easy to see the influence it has had in major Byzantine historians like Vyronis and Treadgold. This book is essentially the foundation of the maximalist school of middle Byzantine history, which is actually a lot more interesting than it sounds.
December 22, 2012
Not an easy read, more political than one might guess if just thinking in terms of icons, paintings & architecture. Of course, art is born in a culture which by definition implies politics. Byron gave me a love (more passionate than an "appreciation") for what Byzantine means. I share through his senses the sights, smells and tactile luxuries of Greece. I shed tears for Smyrna.
November 5, 2019
At 90 years old, and written by someone in their early 20's, the historical content of this book is of no great value today - but that's ok because it is largely historiographical in character. Byron takes some sizeable swipes at Gibbon, which are partly but not entirely justified, and he also seems to square up to him with his rather odd expansive style and syntax. It is certainly true that Gibbon did not consider the Mediaeval Roman Empire to be morally edifying - but this was purely because the Byzantines were losers in the tide of history, not because he had no interest in or sympathy for them. Gibbon wanted to know why the Empire failed, not the particular details of its general existence.
Even so, Byron's work is intelligent, complex and highly engaging. It encourages enthusiasm for all things Byzantine, and offers an fine window onto the subject for beginners familiar only with western European history, particularly the English. Indeed the freshness of his interest in the subject leads him to suggest parallels between Byzantium and the British Empire of the late nineteenth century which are highly thought-provoking, anticipating Jonathan Shepard's more recent essay on Overlapping Circles.
The most valuable idea which emanates from the book is that middle and late Byzantium was not just a sophisticated, but also an extremely strong, resilient state with many admirable features which had in fact partially survived right through to the beginning of the twentieth century in the form of the Ottoman Empire. Rather than blaming the fall of Byzantium on its own structures and institutions as Gibbon does, Byron demonstrates the hugely significant parts played by aggression and bad faith from Western Christendom, as well the repeated blows of natural disasters, irresistible Turkic migrations, civil war and simple bad luck.
JM 05/11/2019
Even so, Byron's work is intelligent, complex and highly engaging. It encourages enthusiasm for all things Byzantine, and offers an fine window onto the subject for beginners familiar only with western European history, particularly the English. Indeed the freshness of his interest in the subject leads him to suggest parallels between Byzantium and the British Empire of the late nineteenth century which are highly thought-provoking, anticipating Jonathan Shepard's more recent essay on Overlapping Circles.
The most valuable idea which emanates from the book is that middle and late Byzantium was not just a sophisticated, but also an extremely strong, resilient state with many admirable features which had in fact partially survived right through to the beginning of the twentieth century in the form of the Ottoman Empire. Rather than blaming the fall of Byzantium on its own structures and institutions as Gibbon does, Byron demonstrates the hugely significant parts played by aggression and bad faith from Western Christendom, as well the repeated blows of natural disasters, irresistible Turkic migrations, civil war and simple bad luck.
JM 05/11/2019
March 24, 2023
其實這本書的定位有點尷尬。作者創作的主旨是想糾正西歐長期以來對拜占庭的偏見，特別是那位吉朋先生，所以動筆。身為一位旅行文學家，作者自己也坦承不是想寫什麼專業的著作，只是一本帶入自己觀察出來的體驗寫就的通俗讀物，想讓世人重新認識拜占庭文明。可事過境遷，這本書放到現在來說，已太過老舊，作者的“時事梗”對中文讀者而言，又更是陌生。實際上這樣定位的，不論繁簡都有可替代的選擇，讓本書顯得非常尷尬。譯者是挺用心的，不過他的文筆還是跟不上作者的文采，譯文多少顯得生硬。結論就是，對主題很有愛的再來買吧。以上。
February 5, 2011
A splendidly eccentric account of Byzantine culture and history. Wonderfully easy to read, although in the initial chapters some discussion of the "Byzantine race" and the language of racial theory from the 1920s (when the book was written) is a little jarring to the modern reader. Still, highly recommended.
February 4, 2016
I was not convinced Byzantium was a great civilization but the author does make his case.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews