Munitsipal'noie Library

For many people, Byzantium is still "byzantine"—obscure, marginal, tricky. regardless of the efforts of a few contemporary historians, prejudices nonetheless deform renowned and scholarly figuring out of the Byzantine civilization, usually decreasing it to a negative relation of Rome and the remainder of the classical global. during this ebook, popular historian Averil Cameron provides an unique and private view of the demanding situations and questions dealing with historians of Byzantium today.

The booklet explores 5 significant subject matters, all matters of controversy. "Absence" asks why Byzantium is oftentimes omitted, overlooked, or relegated to a sphere of its personal. "Empire" reinserts Byzantium into sleek debates approximately empire, and discusses the character of its method and its extraordinary durability. "Hellenism" confronts the query of the "Greekness" of Byzantium, and of where of Byzantium in sleek Greek attention. "The geographical regions of Gold" asks what classes will be drawn from Byzantine visible paintings, and "The Very version of Orthodoxy" demanding situations latest perspectives of Byzantine Christianity.

Throughout, the booklet addresses misconceptions approximately Byzantium, indicates why it's so very important to combine the civilization into wider histories, and lays out why Byzantium might be vital to ongoing debates in regards to the relationships among West and East, Christianity and Islam, Catholicism and japanese Orthodoxy, and the traditional and medieval classes. the result's a forthright and compelling name to re-evaluate where of Byzantium in Western heritage and imagination.