- Hardcover: 296 pages
- Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell (22 Dec 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0631202625
- ISBN-13: 978-0631202622
- Product Dimensions: 16 x 2.3 x 23.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,037,486 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
The Byzantines (The Peoples of Europe)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
“The B.yzantines is a welcome addition to the renewal of Byzantine Studies in contemporary academia.” (Canadian Journal of History, winter 2009)
Winner of the 2006 John D. Criticos Prize
"Seeks consistently to place Byzantium in Context and to make the reader question fundamental preconceptions about the Byzantine empire." (Anglo–Hellenic Review)
Review
Winner of the 2006 John D. Criticos Prize
"Averil Cameron’s The Byzantines marks a welcome departure from most previous attempts to portray and characterize Byzantine civilization. The book focuses squarely on the people of the Byzantine Empire, their views of themselves and their culture, and how these changed over time. The result is a remarkably clear view of who the Byzantines were, and the book will contribute significantly to a restoration of Byzantium to its rightful place at the center of the historical tradition of Europe."
–Timothy Gregory, Ohio State University
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
"The Byzantines" correct many errors about a State that had a significant impact on all its neighbours and in particular Western Europe, the Slavic world and Islam. It explains very well the reasons why none of these worlds can be clearly understood without a good understanding of the Eastern Roman Empire, which lived as a State until 1453 and still lives as a civilization in several parts of the world. As the book explains, the term "Byzantium" is a neologism invented in the 17th century and the citizens of that State called themeselves Romans. Their neighbours to the East called them and still call them Romans. So the question is why did Western historians give them a different name. The reader of the book will find answers to this question.The Byzantines (Peoples of Europe) (The Peoples of Europe)
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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2 reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Readable high level look at the Byzantines
12 July 2009
Format:Hardcover
The Byzantines is a good little book that is limited by its format and the author's lack of ambition for the book. As part of a series on different "nationalities", the book must try somehow to take the people of an empire that lasted over a millenium and alternately survived, prospered and declined during many radically different cultural contexts into a comprehensible unit over the course of just 200 relatively breezy and accessible pages. Cameron tries to do this in part by setting up a battle with the reader's assumed presumptions, spending much time disabusing a straw man educated in Western European and North American surveys and standard texts of his prejudices. What is it to be a "Byzantine"? Cameron makes it clear that it is not what "we" expect: devoutly Orthodox, autocratic, and forever backward in comparison to the ancients. She simultaneously does acknowledge the importance of Orthodoxy to the empire, and gives us a small taste of how the faith and its place in Byzantine society change over time.
However, Cameron only barely begins to get past what the Byzantines are not to get deeply into what they, at different periods and in different contexts, are. In part because of length limitations, Cameron regularly finds herself wandering back and forth across over 1000 years to have relatively superficial discussions about "Byzantine Art" or "Byzantine Literary Culture". We get only a very brief and summary look at the remarkably different experiences and accomplishments of, for example, Anatolia and Syria during the Muslim conquests, Dalmatia during the years when it was caught between Venice and Constantinople, Justinian's Italian and Andalusian territories, or the growth of the national churchs in Bulgaria and Serbia. Cameroon's analysis of the Byzantines also focuses rather heavily on the Greek language culture, and less on the Syriac, Slavic, Turkic and other strains of the empire and its people, and their influence on the Greek core. It may have been more useful to tackle some of the historical problems through a series of vignettes of discrete periods or people (much in the way Maria Rosa Menocal, for example, tackles a similar problem in her marvelous many-century survey of medieval Andalusia, the The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain).
This book is a nifty little introduction for someone who is looking for an introduction, with a number of well-thought out points. It also does a good job of introducing the reader to a wide range of debates about and important texts discussing Byzantine history. However, the book is also a woefully incomplete beginning to a larger project. I am glad I read the Byzantines, and will recommend it happily to others and look for something else, something longer and more focused, by Cameron to read. For example, her book on Procopius, the historian, functionary, and soldier ( Procopius and the Sixth Century), looks mighty interesting.
LATER NOTE: This book has sat in a readily accessible place for some time while I planned for and after I returned from a trip to Greece, and I've continued to mine through it and read more, and have found that it is remarkably fertile territory as an overview. While she doesn't have space to really dig deeply, she does include a remarkable amount of fairly interesting and provocative "food for thought" in here. Boy, I would love it if she could add another few hundred pages.
However, Cameron only barely begins to get past what the Byzantines are not to get deeply into what they, at different periods and in different contexts, are. In part because of length limitations, Cameron regularly finds herself wandering back and forth across over 1000 years to have relatively superficial discussions about "Byzantine Art" or "Byzantine Literary Culture". We get only a very brief and summary look at the remarkably different experiences and accomplishments of, for example, Anatolia and Syria during the Muslim conquests, Dalmatia during the years when it was caught between Venice and Constantinople, Justinian's Italian and Andalusian territories, or the growth of the national churchs in Bulgaria and Serbia. Cameroon's analysis of the Byzantines also focuses rather heavily on the Greek language culture, and less on the Syriac, Slavic, Turkic and other strains of the empire and its people, and their influence on the Greek core. It may have been more useful to tackle some of the historical problems through a series of vignettes of discrete periods or people (much in the way Maria Rosa Menocal, for example, tackles a similar problem in her marvelous many-century survey of medieval Andalusia, the The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain).
This book is a nifty little introduction for someone who is looking for an introduction, with a number of well-thought out points. It also does a good job of introducing the reader to a wide range of debates about and important texts discussing Byzantine history. However, the book is also a woefully incomplete beginning to a larger project. I am glad I read the Byzantines, and will recommend it happily to others and look for something else, something longer and more focused, by Cameron to read. For example, her book on Procopius, the historian, functionary, and soldier ( Procopius and the Sixth Century), looks mighty interesting.
LATER NOTE: This book has sat in a readily accessible place for some time while I planned for and after I returned from a trip to Greece, and I've continued to mine through it and read more, and have found that it is remarkably fertile territory as an overview. While she doesn't have space to really dig deeply, she does include a remarkable amount of fairly interesting and provocative "food for thought" in here. Boy, I would love it if she could add another few hundred pages.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Best thematic introduction available
30 Dec 2009
Format:Paperback
Once again, Averil Cameron has produced a superb work. Be sure to understand what this book is offering: it is not a typical history of the Byzantine state. If that is what you're looking for, search out Ostrogorsky or Norwich, and while both are dated and the latter is a little simplistic, they follow in the more traditional vein of state histories. Here, Cameron writes thematically, dealing with a wide variety of topics on the Byzantine Empire, but mostly focusing on its people. It is not quite a replacement for Kazhdan's aging People and Power in Byzantium: An Introduction to Modern Byzantine Studies (Dumbarton Oaks Other Titles in Byzantine Studies), but is much more up-to-date and readable than that text. However, this is also not a "people's history" for she blends the common and the elite very well, discussing topics such as military organization, art and the placement of Byzantium in European and Near-Eastern history. What makes this book exceptional is its value to the layman. Someone who knows almost nothing about Byzantium can read this book and come away with a good overview of a wide variety of topics in Byzantine history. The fact that Cameron is one of the most well-known and widely-respected Byzantinists today is significant, as she presents modern research in all areas of the book. It is more than just a thematic history though, as it is also an introduction to Byzantine Studies. Cameron discusses the development of the field and also introduces readers to its most important scholars and works in the text, so that it does not force the casual reader to consult the bibliography and wonder about the quality of the source.
While this is primarily an introductory work, more advanced students may find it useful as a handbook for referencing current opinions on a wide variety of topics. It's cheap, it's an easy read and reflects current trends in Byzantine scholarship and discusses many of the issues presented to students who are trying to understand exactly what Byzantium was. Highly recommended.
While this is primarily an introductory work, more advanced students may find it useful as a handbook for referencing current opinions on a wide variety of topics. It's cheap, it's an easy read and reflects current trends in Byzantine scholarship and discusses many of the issues presented to students who are trying to understand exactly what Byzantium was. Highly recommended.
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