Byzantium : A Very Short Introduction

Oxford Very Short Introductions

From the fourth to the fifteenth century CE, the Byzantine Empire flourished as one of the most powerful economic, cultural, and military forces in Europe.

In this Very Short Introduction, Peter Sarris introduces the reader to the unique fusion of Roman political culture, Greek intellectual tradition, and Christian faith that took place in the imperial capital of Byzantium under the Emperor Constantine and his heirs. Considering the external threats facing the empire from the Persian and Islamic worlds to the east, Sarris shows how Byzantium held power for eleven centuries, and why it ultimately fell.

Peter Sarris is Reader in Late Roman, Medieval, and Byzantine History and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. His books include Empires of Faith: The Fall of Rome to the Rise of Islam (2011).