Byzantium: The Bridge from Antiquity to the Middle Ages

Rating:
Summary: politically motivated?
Review: Angold's "Byzantium: The bridge from antiquity to the middle ages" is a book I would never have bought had I given it closer inspection before buying it. I can only describe this book as a curiosity which presents a point of view arrived at by way of poorly applied logic intended to serve an unstated political purpose.
The fundamental problem is that Angold is attempting a broader history that puts Byzantium in the context of the east as much as the west - and fails.
The shortcomings of this book are manifold, so I will limit this critique to a number of statements made by Angold in this book. In p 39 for instance he writes "... the Carolingian West and the Abbasid Caliphate sought to emulate and surpass Byzantium..." On p. 90 he writes that the Byzantine emperor (Theophilus) was emulating the Abbasid court in apparent contradiction.
However, the Abbasid Court was an attempt to recreate in Baghdad the splendour of the demolished Sassanian Court as it had existed in Ctesiphon before Arab conquest. The claimed Abbasid-cum-Arab achievement was instead (largely) Persian: the Abbasids were helped into power by Persians and this resulted in preferential treatment of Persians by their Arab over-lords (Mary Boyce in her "Zoroastrians: their religious beliefs and practices" pp 150-152; and Delacy O'Leary in his "How Greek Science passed to the Arabs" pp 147-148 & 155, both write on this Persian phase for instance).
What I found most intriguing is what Angold writes in p 69: "...Islam had created in almost every respect [a] superior civilization." to the Byzantines... It is perhaps this that best helps articulate the greatest of shortcomings of Angold's book. For this to be true, it would have helped to show how this "Islamic civilization" was emulated.... So, I'll help Angold:

1/Mohammedans (Muslims) made landfall in Spain in 711. In 788 a Mohammedan army fought a battle against the army of Charlemagne. This encounter is remembered in the "Song of Roland" from which to quote: "...if you die, you will be holy martyrs. You will have seats in Paradise the Great." (lines 95-100). This idea that martyrdom could be achieved by dying whilst spilling blood then made its way to Rome and became part of Urban 2's call for a Crusade 3 centuries later. This is a non-Christian idea which comes directly from the Koran: Repentance 9:38: "Believers, why is it that when it is said to you: 'March in the cause of Allah,' you linger slothfully in the land? Are you content with this life in preference to the life to come? Few indeed are the blessings of this life compared to those of the life to come. If you do not fight He will punish you sternly and replace you by other men. Allah has power over all things.";

2/Although the Abbasids were helped into power by Persians (750s), Persians were not given a charte blanche to conduct their civilization. They had to conduct themselves as Muslims, not Zoroastrians and in Arabic, not Persian. This was enforced by what was known as the "ulama" (or "culama") an Islamic Inquisition. This made certain that their views did not contradict Islam and their writing in Arabic meant that the Arabs could inspect Persian ideas for possible heresy. This idea was adopted by Innocent 3, 5 centuries later & it formed the basis of the Roman & then, Spanish inquisitions;

3/In 9th century Baghdad, Caliph Al Motevakel excluded from government employment and schooling all non-Mohammedans, who were forced to wear distinct clothing and coloured ribbons to indicate they were non-Mohammedans. In 1215 the Roman Catholic church held its Fourth Lateran Council in which cannons 78 & 79 ordered that Jews and Mohammedans wear clothing so they could be differentiated from Christians!

If emulation is an demonstration of a superior culture being imitated, then Angold is right.... in the instance of Roman based western Latin Christendom. It should be emphasised that none of these restrictions applied in Byzantium.

If anyone requires another book on Byzantium of this period one should look at Warren Treadgold's: "A concise history of Byzantium".

If anyone (including Angold) desires to understand how much knowledge of antiquity was available in early Byzantium along with a comparative account of knowledge available in the Latin west, then "Greek science in Antiquity" by Marshall Clagett is indispensable.

To arrive at an understanding on the importance of Byzantium in transmitting Hellenistic ideas to the "Arab" world, I suggest that the interested reader should read "How Greek science passed to the Arabs" by Delacy O'Leary.



Rating:
Summary: One-Dimensional History
Review: Angold's "Byzantium: The Bridge from Antiquity to the Middle Ages" is a one-dimensional, badly written, and very badly edited book. Essentially, the author discusses only religious matters and art from the time of Constantine the Great through the tenth century. There is something of an epilogue that covers the Norman occupation of Sicily through about 1175, but the only mention of Byzantium here concerns mosaics, and one wonders what's the point. Worse, this last chapter covers twenty pages of a book that only runs 165 pages. There is virtually no coverage of court politics, international relations, military campaigns, economics, or social interactions, which leaves even the religious topics without context. Angold never establishes the premise of the title either. Ultimately, there is no reason to buy this book, except as decor.

Rating:
Summary: One-Dimensional History
Review: Angold's "Byzantium: The Bridge from Antiquity to the Middle Ages" is a one-dimensional, badly written, and very badly edited book. Essentially, the author discusses only religious matters and art from the time of Constantine the Great through the tenth century. There is something of an epilogue that covers the Norman occupation of Sicily through about 1175, but the only mention of Byzantium here concerns mosaics, and one wonders what's the point. Worse, this last chapter covers twenty pages of a book that only runs 165 pages. There is virtually no coverage of court politics, international relations, military campaigns, economics, or social interactions, which leaves even the religious topics without context. Angold never establishes the premise of the title either. Ultimately, there is no reason to buy this book, except as decor.

Rating:
Summary: More an essay than a broad introduction
Review: The author appears to write about those aspects of the subject that interest him, without intending to give a broad introduction to Byzantium. In fact, many topics, such as Charlemagne and Norman Sicily, which are not strictly Byzantine, are coverd at some length. The major focus of the Byzantine material itself is Iconoclasm. So while the book is very readable, and without footnotes, it is probably not the best first book on Byzantium for the general reader, but better suited to those who already have some background and want to learn more about the topics covered. Included are four maps, and a large section of black-and-white plates, most being photos of things religious.