Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization

(I listened to the unabridged audio version) The author does a fine job of reading his own work. Like any book about distant history, you've gotta pay close attention, or you can quickly lose your place and have no idea what he's talking about. But if you pay attention, the book is an excellent narrative, from the founding of Constantinople to the fall of Constantinople. You could draw a nice graph of the rising and falling fortunes of the Empire from this clearly-written, entertaining account. In a single volume, Mr. Brownworth has done a great summary of 1,100 years of history, and I found myself wanting to seek more detailed, deeper histories of certain events and people, but that's by no means a criticism of this book. If you had x pages to tell the rich story of Byzantium, you can't tell it more evenly and smoothly than this book does. I think I really did end up with a reasonably comprehensive, if basic, passing familiarity with the totality of this now-little-known empire, which basically was the center of the WORLD for 1,000 years. It's made me wish my Greek friends had a better grasp of their own history so we can talk about it.

A well written first introduction and overview of the history of the Eastern Roman Empire. Relevant to how roots of the past have and continue to impact the world today.

Lost to the west