Depending on definitions,
Byzantine history spans around, or more than a century over, a millennium. There aren’t that many historians that choose to write broad brush books covering such a long span of time.
John Julius Norwich’s
Short History has already been mentioned. He also wrote a longer, three-volume
work:
Byzantium: The Early Centuries ,
Byzantium: The Apogee, and
Byzantium: The Decline and Fall.
His writing is popular, rather than academic, but he knows
his subject. My biggest question about
his approach is that I think he sometimes underestimates the vitality of
Byzantine theological debate, and so theological issues get presented more as political struggles.
Speaking of decline and fall, there is always Gibbon, of course – but you’ll need the full six-volume text, because the abridged versions usually omit most of the
Byzantine stuff. And Gibbon never got beyond thinking of the
Byzantines as corrupt
Romans, rather than as an innovative Greek empire in their own right.
For something more cultural (and less focused on the merely
military) than Norwich, I would recommend Judith Herrin’s
Byzantium: the surprising life of a medieval empire. Herrin is a well-respected historian – she’s a professor at KCL – but this book is meant for a general, rather than specialist, readership.
Bill R.
