Byzantium

A sweeping new history of the Byzantine Empire in all its power and splendor

For more than a thousand years, the Byzantine Empire stood at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, shaping the course of world history. Its capital, Constantinople, was the largest and wealthiest city in the Christian world, a hub of trade, learning, and artistic achievement that dazzled visitors from every direction. Its emperors commanded armies, patronized extraordinary art, and sparred with popes, caliphs, and Crusaders. Its influence stretched from the steppes of Russia to the highlands of Ethiopia. Peter Sarris tells the full story of this remarkable civilization, from the founding of Constantinople in 330, through Justinian’s golden age, through victories over Arab fleets and Crusader treachery, all the way to its eventual fall at the hands of the Turks in 1453. Sarris reveals an empire that thrived not through relentless expansion but through economic sophistication, religious authority, and cultural magnetism. Here are the emperors and empresses, the theologians and generals, the merchants and monks who built a civilization that endured long after many of its rivals fragmented and fell.

Byzantium is not just a new history of an iconic empire, but a tale of how society can flourish, even through times of peril.