Customer Reviews

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

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The Roman Empire fell on Tuesday, May 29, 1453, when Mehmed II sacked Constantinople, and Constantine XI Dragases stripped off his imperial battle gear and died alone and unrecognized. If you dated the fall to September 5, 476, when Romulus Augustulus surrendered his crown and scepter to the Vandal Odoacer, you would be half right. That is indeed when the western half of the empire fell, setting off the so-called "Dark Ages" in earnest. But the eastern half lived on for another 1000 years, waxing and waning in influence from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates and from the Balkans to the Nile. It was finally eclipsed by the triumph of the Ottomans, never to rise again.

Lars Brownworth is not a professional historian, but he is a fantastic history-teller. "Lost to the West" is a portrait of the history of the eastern half of the empire from its founding by Constantine the Great to its demise under his namesake. The major "great men" (and women) as well as big events find a place in his fast-moving narrative: Constantine, Justinian, Belisarius, the Council of Nicea, the erection of Hagia Sophia, the Great Schism, and the centuries long battle with Islam.

Professional historians will probably find something to quibble with here and there. But if you know nothing about Byzantium (as the eastern empire came to be known), then Brownworth is the place to start. He includes a list of primary and secondary sources at the end of the book, as well as a chronological list of eastern emperors.

Highly recommended.

This book comes recommended by Anthony Everitt and Tom Holland, two of the best popularizers of ancient Western history. As such, I figured it had to be pretty good. Following his successful podcast, Lars Brownworth introduces the Byzantine empire to the modern world. Often overlooked, Byzantium was the heir to Rome and a major civilization that lasted 1,000 years after the "fall of Rome" in 476. As Brownworth points out, Western civilization owes a huge debt to Byzantium, from modern legal codes to defending Western Europe against Islam. Brownworth makes this thousand-year story accessible to the modern reader.

[Note: the book covers the same territory as the podcast, although the book is more detailed and worth reading if you liked the podcast.]

Brownworth's Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization is literally the thousand-year history of Byzantium. It begins with Constantine and ends with the Muslim conquest in 1453. Sometimes this means the book reads too quickly, with emperors dying before the reader even gets to know them. Golden ages fade quickly into dark ages - and then back again to golden ages. However, Brownworth's goal is to introduce Byzantium to the 21st century public and, as he puts it, whet the reader's appetite for more. Doing so requires speeding past decades, or even centuries, of history, but this is often necessary to complete the story in one volume. The scope is ambitious, although I think by and large Brownworth succeeds in both providing enough detail to make Byzantium real and not getting too bogged down within a particular time period. Furthermore, this is no dry history textbook - the story is replete with wars, charismatic leaders, assassinations, and sex scandals.

Brownworth takes a "big man" approach to history, which focuses on the emperors and leaders rather than ideologies or the common peasants in Byzantium. He chooses the most important emperors and focuses on their reigns (his podcast was appropriately titled "12 Byzantine Rulers"). I agree this probably the best way to present history for non-experts, especially for a place like Byzantium. Indeed, Brownworth does a great job showing how the tides of Byzantine history changed dramatically with changes in political leadership. Byzantium did remarkably well when capable military rulers took the reigns of power, but floundered when aristocrats and petty thugs ruled. By contrast, most of the ideological disputes centered around obscure Christian doctrine (e.g., Arians versus Orthodox), so wouldn't be as exciting to readers as the dramatic political movements of the 20th century. While it is certainly outside the scope of this book, it certainly would have been nice to learn a bit more about Byzantium's contributions to culture and the sciences. But alas, 1,000 years is a long time to cover.

Overall, I think Brownworth does a great job in this book and provides an important service in making Byzantium more accessible and, well, less byzantine. However, at times I think he becomes a bit too pithy and cliched in describing certain historical personages. For example, good emperors work hard in "service" to the empire, while bad leaders are "power-hungry" or fools. "Ominous clouds" threaten the empire far too many times in one book. While Brownworth is probably right in most of these assessments, it isn't necessary for him as the narrator to actually interject his commentary, but rather let the action of history speak for itself. I think the book does read easily and has good pacing, but these cliches do become a bit distracting - although certainly not fatal to the story.

By the way, Brownworth now has a new podcast out about the Normans, available on iTunes.

The Byzantine Empire - and by extension, the Roman Empire- existed for 1,123 years and 18 days. Yet most of us know little about it other than he word "byzantine" being vaguely synonymous for highly intricate, complex, murky or devious dealings. In fact, the story of the Byzantine Empire is the telling of what we now know as Western Civilization. Beginning as the capital for the Eastern part of the Roman Empire, its primary city Constantinople became the center of a very vibrant society the preserved Greek and Roman traditions while Western Europe slipped under the control of barbarians and into what we call the Dark Ages.

Lars Brownworth has written an absolutely stunning popular history of the Byzantine Empire. Remarkably, he covers in surprising detail more than a thousand years of growth, decline, war, peace, prosperity, poverty, devastation by plague, earthquakes, invading armies and internal sloth, corruption and incompetence in just over 300 pages. His writing style is relaxed and easy, yet packed with facts. There are occasions when things become confusing because he doesn't mention the years of certain event often enough and sometimes skips ahead by decades or even generation. By these are tiny criticisms to make in the context of his great achievement, making the history of the Byzantine Empire easily accessible.

I consider myself to be a history buff. Though my area of concentration is primarily 19th Century Europe and the United States, I consider myself well versed in global history. But I couldn't go more than a page or two in "Lost To The West" without learning something new to me. Without Byzantine standing in the way for centuries, the onslaught of Islam might not have been stopped. The Empire also kept alive the writings and learning of the Greeks and Romans which, ultimately, made their way to Western Europe as it shook off its lethargy.

While most of know the names of at least a few Roman Emperors, few of us know much, if anything at all, about the rulers of the Byzantine Empire, save perhaps for Constantine himself. Brownworth tells us of many8 of the 88 Byzantine emperors, a few of whom were worthy beyond measure and many who were incompetent and damaged the Empire and its citizens.

In fact, Brownworth focuses on the Emperors, their circumstances and actions. Relatively little detail is provided beyond this, about the people and their lives. He provides enough to give you the flavor of ordinary life here and there and in this way keeps his history brief. What he does say is enough to depict the cruelty of the invaders from the east and the vagaries of life in that age: brutal death or being sold into slavery. In our age of political correctness, we are rarely informed that the invading culture enslaved entire populations for more than a thousand years, well into the 20th Century.

One recurrent theme is the tension between the Roman and Orthodox Churches. It is fascinating to see how the Pope withheld aid from the Eastern Empire until an agreement to end the schism was reached - and then breached the agreement.

Brownworth devotes significant space to describing the repeated rebirths and flowering of Byzantine art and culture. In a way, the lack of photographs and illustrations of the art and architecture he describes is regrettable, but the truth is that much Byzantine art was destroyed or looted.

Ultimately Constantinople, shielded by its mighty walls for more than a millennia, succumbed to Muslim attackers and the Byzantine Empire was essentially extinct.

Brownworth successfully argues that the Byzantine Empire protected Western Europe until barbarism waned and the retrieved Greek and Roman masterworks opened the eyes of the Europeans and stoked the fires of the Renaissance. Without Byzantine to protect it, Europe would have been overrun by the Islam tide. It is a convincing argument.

Overall, Brownworth has written superb popular history. He makes the Byzantine Empire readily accessible. It is a journey well worth taking.

Jerry

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. One can easily quibble with his method as a historian, but as a storyteller he delivers a tale that will leave many wanting to know when they can expect his next work and maybe even convince some to learn more about the subject he loves. Somehow, I expect that this is, in fact, his goal in writing "Lost to the West."

Lars Brownworth's account of the Byzantine Empire begins with the reign of Diocletian at the end of the 3rd century and ends with the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453. His narrative covers most of the main political and military events of those 1100 years. He writes in an engaging manner, and readers of this book will come away with a better understanding of Byzantine history.

I do not know of any other popular histories of the Byzantines, but even so, I would not recommend this book. Brownworth's narrative is written in a clear, conversational manner (the text is so conversational that some readers will be annoyed). However, the text contains too many factual inaccuracies and outmoded historical interpretations. As I read this book, I stumbled across some real howlers. I'll provide only one example: Brownworth claims that Constantine froze Roman society making occupations hereditary and that this decree created the feudal system of Medieval Europe. I wonder what bad book he read to come to this conclusion. First problem: It was Diocletian who attempted (emphasis on "attempted" because he was terribly unsuccessful) to freeze society. Second problem: Freezing society did not lead to feudalism. Third problem: The scholarly consensus today is that feudalism never existed. So, Brownworth takes a discredited theory and feebly attempts to find its origin in an unenforceable decree that he misattributes to the wrong emperor. A perfect storm of nonsense.

The average reader will gain a greater understanding of Byzantine history by reading this book. But, let the reader beware. The overall story is here, but do not trust any of the particulars without double checking with a reputable source.

If you start out reading about Byzantium, you are immediately lost.

You read "Sailing to Byzantium" and see an excellent short tour of the cultural influences of Byzantium on the West. An excellent book, you think, but I lack an overview of what this empire was, who these people were, why they withstood barbarians, Moslems, pillaging Crusaders, and in many ways preserved what it means to be of the West.

You buy a few books. I read a book once that described the Byzantine army in excruciating detail. Interesting, but dry. I read a decent biography of the Byzantine General Belisarius. I read Procopius's Secret History.

All good, but all episodes.

This book is a simple, cleanly written, and engaging one volume overview of Byzantine history. It is fascinating. It captures the sweep of the history of these people. It is suitable for a freshman college history course, but it is also a good read for a person interested in the Roman Empire, the perennial battle of West vs. East, or the underpinnings of the Renaissance.

There are great stories here, fascinating men and women, the exotic scope of Constantinople, standing on the crossroads of many worlds. This book is what I have been looking for, and it is an excellent overview that will incite much interest in any casual or serious student of history.

This is a very well written book that tries to cover too much in too little time. There are 1000 years of history being covered here, and that simply cannot be covered in 352 pages. If you think about it, that means that there are about 3 years covered every page. The five emperors after Heraclius are covered in one sentence so that he can skip on to Leo III who comes over 100 years later. One hundred years dismissed in a single sentence. It isn't as if they were boring years either. During that time the Muslims took over Africa and Spain and almost conquered the Byzantines. Obviously this isn't going to give anybody a good idea of what happened. If you must read a single book summary of Byzantine civilization I would recommend John Julius Norwich's A Short History of Byzantium. It covers the same material in slightly more pages (495) and is even better written.

Perhaps it isn't fair to judge this book stating that it is not as good as another, but that book has been out for years. If Brownworth had anything of his own to add I wouldn't be as harsh but he doesn't. There is nothing in this book that you can't learn from Norwich's, and more besides. Both of them are little more than records of the emperors of Byzantium. The economic and social systems get very little mention. Still, Norwich's book does at least offer a thorough narrative. This book reads more like a "best of" collection than anything else given how it jumps from one period to another with little mention of what comes in between. If you want to read up on Byzantium I would recommend strongly Norwich's trilogy on the subject, of which the Short History is merely an abridgement. The trilogy consists of The Early Centuries, The Apogee, and Byzantium: The Decline and Fall. These are probably the best place to begin for the the Byzantines.

The back cover of my review copy proclaims that "Lost to the West" is "no dry, scholarly work"; that the author "vividly evokes wars, bloody usurpations, and conspiricies"; that the book, which is intended to "popularze" history, is "entertaining." All these editorial assertions are true. With its dearth of citations, dates, indexes, and bibliography, "Lost to the West" has achieved, if not surpassed, its goal.

Although it begins slowly, the narrative becomes especially vivid and entertaining beginning with chapter seven, "The Rise of Peter Sabbatius," which focuses upon the rise of Justinian I, an era with which I have only a nodding acquaintance (other than Procopius' entertaining and tendentious "Secret History"--my interests being riveted on the late Republic and Empire through Septimius Severus--with occasional teaching forays into the 4th-5th centuries of our era).

As vivid and entertaining as I found the subsequent chapters--especially the adventures of Justinian's brilliant general Belisarius--doubts nevertheless lingered at the back of my mind, generated by some of the generalizations, simplifications, and, I fear, inaccuracies that caught my eye in chapters one to six, doubts that were exacerbated by the author's frequent forays into the thoughts of his historical protagonists.

To delve into the arguable over-simplifications here--e.g., "Crushed into hopelessness, more and more people took refuge in the different "mystery cults," the most popular of which was Christianity" [7]--would take up too much space for a short review; instead, I shall give only four examples. 1) On Diocletian's monetary reforms: "With budget and borders in hand. . ." glosses over the fact that Diocletian had no means to enforce his edict of maximum prices or coinage reforms [See A. Cameron, "The Later Roman Empire," Cambridge, MA (1993) 39]. 2) Rumor presented as fact: "Captured by the enemy, [the Roman Emperor Valerian] was forced to endure the indignity of being used as a footstool by the gleeful Persian king [2]" comes from the speculations of Lactantius, a Christian apologist who was not on hand to witness either Valerian's humiliation or Shapur's "glee". 3) The author's assessment of Constantine's reforms as resulting in the "feudal system, which would take deep root and not be overthrown for a thousand years" [17] fails to acknowledge the patron-client system in which, through a series of mutual obligations, the lower classes had been tied to the upper classes in the Roman world since before Romulus' adoptive mother was a pup. 4) Inaccuracies: "Without [a written constitution], every reign was reduced at its core to the principle of survival of the fittest--as Augustus, wrapped up in the cloak of the Republic had more eloquently put it, "carpe diem"--seize the day" [9]. Although it is likely that Augustus quoted this memorable line of one of his pet poets, Horace, there is no written evidence that he ever actually uttered the words, which were written in the spirit of "Gather ye rosebuds while you may," and certainly not in context of hanging onto the imperial succession.

I realize that the goal of the publisher and Amazon is to sell books, which is why I debated so long on whether I should post this negative review. I think, however, that the entire concept of "popularizing" history in the form of straight narrative ought to be questioned. The ancient sources, which contain fascinating nuggets of information, are both sparse and full of holes--rather like a giant jigsaw puzzle. They have to be pieced together along with the evidence of inscriptions, archaeology, art, papyri, and other documents. They are therefore open to scholarly interpretation, which, admittedly, can be dreadfully dry, primarily because scholars are writing for other scholars (although the writings of many historians today are actually interesting--some even exciting). Arguably, a better way to "popularize" history (the actual events--or in the case of ancient history, the reports of events--are exciting in their own right) is through a good historical novel (examples: "Beacon at Alexandria," & "The Bearkeeper's Daughter," by Gillian Bradshaw, with degrees in Classics from U. of Michigan & U. of Cambridge; Mysteries about Rome by Steven Saylor, whose degree in Classics is from the University of Texas). My own fascination with history came via Alexandre Dumas; my journey back to ancient history is too tortuous to go into here. In a historical novel by an informed author, any reasonable scenario becomes plausible. In a straight narrative, however, unless the author has scrupulously checked all his facts, including those that are tangential to his narrative, he is left with a burden of proof, so that his reconstruction of events does not come tumbling down because of the missing pieces in his structural foundation.

I rather enjoyed reading this book. It moves quickly and is well-written.

It has to be viewed for what it is. It is a, reasonably short, one-volume summary of the Byzantine Empire from Constantine the Great through to the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman turks in 1453. As such, it misses much (e.g., very little on the important female empresses) and often skips blocks of time, but is intended for the general reader who would like a basic introduction. If you want something more scholarly, you will be disappointed (and probably even irritated) by the lack of sources for statements and the occasional speculations on what people were thinking. However, if an objective is to get more people to know anything at all about an enormous gap in historical general knowledge, it succeeds and, better, will possibly encourage some of those to read more detailed studies.

If you are a general reader and want more, try John Julius Norwich's three volume History of Byzantium next, as well as fascinating contemporary source documents such as Procopius' Secret History and the Alexiad of Anna Comnena. For a lesson to us all in how to write well, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (even in an abbreviated version) should be on everyone's list of Great Books (even if the history is somewhat outdated by more than two centuries of research).

In this book, Lars Brownworth recovers the lost empire of Byzantium for the modern reader. It is a popular history, and a quick read. I appreciated his fluent writing, and his book - poised delicately, like the Byzantine Empire itself, between East and West - is an excellent corrective to the usual, Western and Euro-centric, understanding of the Middle Ages. As Brownworth explains, Byzantium stood for one thousand years as a fortress between Europe and Islam, and lasted just long enough until Europe became strong enough to stand on its own.

If it weren't for Byzantium, we'd all be speaking Arabic and bowing down to Mecca today. It is an inspiring history, and Brownworth tells it in a way that most of us can appreciate and enjoy. This is not exactly an academic history, but it is very appropriate for homeschooling, and high school or college students and general readers will also be sure to get a lot out of it.