Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

A Short History of Byzantium (Vintage)

by John Julius Norwich

"Norwich is always on the lookout for the small but revealing details. . . . All of this he recounts in a style that consistently entertains." --The New York Times Book Review In this magisterial adaptation of his epic three-volume history of Byzantium, John Julius Norwich chronicles the world's longest-lived Christian empire. Beginning with Constantine the Great, who in a.d. 330 made Christianity the religion... (more)

Byzantium

by Stephen R. Lawhead

A master storyteller weaves a tale of adventure and the coming of age of a young soul in this epic novel of the early centuries of the first millennium.

The Alexiad of Anna Comnena (The Penguin Classics)

The Alexiad of Anna Comnena (The Penguin Classics)

by Anna Comnena

Text: English, Greek (translation)

Golden Palaces (The Royal Pavilions , No 2)

Golden Palaces (The Royal Pavilions , No 2)

by L. L. Chaikin

Clothed with the promise of salvation, the knights of the first crusade fight gallantly to reclaim the Holy Land-but only their courage can save them from the infidels. Helena of the Nobility has long resigned herself to the control of her aunt Lady Irene, a woman for whom betrayal is commonplace. Having banished Helen's mother from Constantinople, Irene stalks the palace courtyard while Helena secretly plots her... (more)

Byzantium: The Bridge from Antiquity to the Middle Ages

Byzantium: The Bridge from Antiquity to the Middle Ages

by Michael Angold

Michael Angold's book is a clear, concise and authoritative history of the successor state to the Roman Empire, known as the Byzantine Empire. It was named after Byzantium, which Emperor Constantine I rebuilt in 330 AD as Constantinople and made the capital of the entire Roman Empire. Angold begins in the heart of Byzantium, the city of Constantinople from which a new Empire emerged. He shows how the foundation... (more)

by Michael Psellus

This chronicle of the Byzantine Empire, beginning in 1025, shows a profound understanding of the power politics that characterized the empire and led to its decline.

Companion Guide to Istanbul: and around the Marmara (Companion Guides)

Companion Guide to Istanbul: and around the Marmara (Companion Guides)

by John Freely

Istanbul is the only city in the world that stands astride two continents, spreading across from Europe into Asia at the southern end of the Bosphorus, the incomparably beautiful strait linking the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara in northwestern Turkey. This Companion Guide to Istanbul goes as far as the region around Marmara from the Bosphorus to the Dardanelles, which flows into the Aegean past the historic... (more)

Sailing from Byzantium: How a Lost Empire Shaped the World

Sailing from Byzantium: How a Lost Empire Shaped the World

by Colin Wells

A gripping intellectual adventure story, Sailing from Byzantium sweeps you from the deserts of Arabia to the dark forests of northern Russia, from the colorful towns of Renaissance Italy to the final moments of a millennial city under siege…. Byzantium: the successor of Greece and Rome, this magnificent empire bridged the ancient and modern worlds for more than a thousand years. Without Byzantium, the works of... (more)

Anna of Byzantium

by Tracy Barrett

Anna Comnena has every reason to feel entitled. She's a princess, her father's firstborn and his chosen successor. Someday she expects to sit on the throne and rule the vast Byzantine Empire. So the birth of a baby brother doesn't perturb her. Nor do the "barbarians" from foreign lands, who think only a son should ascend to power. Anna is as dismissive of them as are her father and his most trusted adviser--his... (more)

The Complete Poems of Cavafy: Expanded Edition

The Complete Poems of Cavafy: Expanded Edition

by Constantine Cavafy

Cavafy, the foremost modern Greek poet, is a master at presenting a scene, an intense feeling, or an idea in direct, unornamented verse. Many of the poems are openly homosexual. Sixty-three newly translated poems have been added to the widely praised edition which includes the classic poem “Ithaca.” Introduction by W. H. Auden. Translated by Rae Dalven.

Early Christian & Byzantine Art: A&I (Art and Ideas)

Early Christian & Byzantine Art: A&I (Art and Ideas)

by John Lowden

Working from the surviving material presented here with the help of superlative photographs, many specially taken for this book, John Lowden explains how and why Early Christian & Byzantine art was made and used. This is an accessible and authoritative book that will inspire anyone who is curious about the origins of Christian art.

Silk Dreams

by Diana Groe

In a strange land of flashing swords and swirling silks, spicy aromas and hot breezes that feel like a lover's breath, Valdis is utterly lost. Constantinople is so vastly different from her homeland in Scandinavia. And the harem she's forced to enter so very treacherous. Her family cast her away for seeing portents of the future, and now her visions are turning even more ominous: They foretell the... (more)

Digenis Akritis: The Grottaferrata and Escorial Versions (Cambridge Medieval Classics)

Digenis Akritis: The Grottaferrata and Escorial Versions (Cambridge Medieval Classics)

"Digenis Akritis" is Byzantium's only epic poem, telling of the exploits of a heroic warrior of "double descent" on the frontiers between Byzantine and Arab territory in Asia Minor in the ninth and tenth centuries. It survives partially in six versions, of which the two oldest are edited here. This edition and translation aims to highlight the nature of the lost poem, and to provide a guide through the maze of... (more)

The High City

by Cecelia Holland

It is the early years of the reign of Basil II, who became one most successful, and most feared, Byzantine emperors. But for now, Basil rules as a co-emperor with his brother Constantine, and makes war on a would-be usurper, Bardas Phokas, son of a General who Basil supplanted. Basil’s most trusted troops are foreign mercenaries, the Varangian guard hired from the North. Rus and Norsemen, Viking raiders and wild... (more)

Empires, Wars, and Battles: The Middle East from Antiquity to the Rise of the New World

Empires, Wars, and Battles: The Middle East from Antiquity to the Rise of the New World

by T. C. F. Hopkins

As current events have made painfully obvious, the Middle East is a region long torn by strife and traditions of warfare. In this elegant, fast-paced, and well thought out cultural and military history, T. C. F. Hopkins, author of Confrontation at Lepanto , provides a remarkable glimpse into the origins of the conflicts that formed the ancient world as well as the world we have inherited. This book examines the... (more)

Legend of the Last Vikings - Taklamakan

by John Halsted

A Viking Saga. Action and adventure at the end of the Viking age from Norway across the European Steppe, along the Silk Route into China's notorious Taklamakan desert. The desert so called by locals because those who venture in seldom venture out. Experience ancient peoples, cultures, lost tribes and hidden kingdoms. As well as mystery, action, adventure, love, lust, greed, comradeship and betrayal. Just what one... (more)

Justinian's Flea: The First Great Plague and the End of the Roman Empire

Justinian's Flea: The First Great Plague and the End of the Roman Empire

by William Rosen

The epic story of the collision between one of nature’s smallest organisms and history’s mightiest empire During the golden age of the Roman Empire, Emperor Justinian reigned over a territory that stretched from Italy to North Africa. It was the zenith of his achievements and the last of them. In 542 AD, the bubonic plague struck. In weeks, the glorious classical world of Justinian had been plunged into the... (more)

The Bearkeeper's DaughterGillian Bradshaw

The Bearkeeper's Daughter

by Gillian Bradshaw

Bradshaw returns to the setting of The Beacon at Alexandria, again producing a historical novel that animates an era. Intrigue, bastardy and godlike privilege emerge as the chief motivators in a fanciful tale of the Byzantine Empress Theodora and John, the lowly scribe who materializes one day and addresses her as "Mother." Since he has clearly inherited her beauty and brains, he soon establishes himself not only... (more)

Byzantine Armies 886-1118 (Men-at-Arms)

by Ian Heath

The Byzantines had a remarkably sophisticated approach to politics and military strategy. Unlike most of their contemporaries, they learnt very early in their history that winning a battle did not necessarily win a war, and they frequently bought off their enemies with treaties and bribes rather than squander men and matériel in potentially fruitless campaigns. The Byzantine army of the 10th and early 11th... (more)

Chronicles of the Crusades (Classics S.)

Chronicles of the Crusades (Classics S.)

by Jean de Joinville, Geffroy de Villehardouin

Composed by soldiers who fought in the Holy Wars, these two famous French chronicles are among the most important portrayals of both the dark and light side of the two hundred year struggle for possession of Jerusalem. The first trustworthy and fully informed history of the Crusades, Villehardouin's Conquest of Constantinople describes the era of the Fourth Crusade the period between 1199 and 1207, during which a... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: byzantium