Kind of what the title says—I want to learn more about the Byzantine Empire. It doesn’t need to be an academic book in fact, I would prefer something fun to read and not too dry. I’m mostly interested in the later years, around 800-1400. If anyone has a recommendation, hit me up! I´d settle for historical fiction as well.
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That period of the medieval Roman Empire would cover a great deal of epochs, going from the end of Iconoclasm and the long recovery from the 7th century, to regional hegemony under the Macedonian dynasty, to the arrival of the Seljuks, to the entire Crusades debacle and the rise of the Ottomans. There’s a great deal of literature that focuses on each one of these specific periods which you can refer to once you’ve familiarized yourself with the overall chronology.
There’s an in-depth narrative history of the 800-1100 period with an audiobook as well: Kaldellis, A. 2017. Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood: The Rise and Fall of Byzantine, 955 A.D. to the First Crusade. Oxford University Press. Kaldellis also recently published 2023. The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium which has become the latest authoritative survey history on the entire Eastern Roman period.
For a much more abridged pop history work, there’s Brownsworth, L. 2010. Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization. Crown., which also has an audiobook version.
Some notable historical fiction includes “Baudolino,” written by the Italian novellist Umberto Eco of “Ur-Fascism” fame, on an Italian man adopted as the son of Holy Roman/German Emperor Frederick II that set during the Fourth Crusade.
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Byzantium from Judith Herrin
Steven Runciman’s books about the period are considered some of the best.
