The fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453 marked the end of a thousand years of the Christian Roman Empire. Thereafter, world civilisation began a process of radical change. The West came to identify itself as Europe; the Russians were set on the path of autocracy; the …
Michael Angold's book is a clear, concise, and authoritative history of Imperial Rome's successor: the Byzantine Empire. Byzantium was a Greek polis on the Bosphorus that gained importance in A.D. 324 when it was refounded by Constantine the Great and named Constantinople. One o…
Details how the cultural inheritors of Rome, Islam, Christianity, the Orthodox church, and a sacred monarchy struggled to coexist in Constantinople by documenting the evolution and character of Byzantium's art, society, and politics.