Byzantium: The Apogee (Byzantium #2)

Hardcover Cloth 389 pages. Condition Very Good Dust Jacket Very Good. Presumed First edition Eleventh printing 2004 with corresponding number line. Beautiful tan boards with maroon buckram 1/8 spine and gilt embossing shows off this Clean, tight, square copy with no marks, highlights or bookplates. Book Well kept and carefully stored in unread condition. Slight shelf wear. Remainder stripe on bottom edge. An unclipped dust jacket smooth, clean and brilliant with slight shelf wear - a few wrinkles and chips. Not an ex-library or book club copy.

The second volume of John Julius Norwich's history of Byzantium starts from the year 800 with the coronation of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor and ends with the battle of Manzikert in 1071 followed by the ascension to the throne of Alexios Komnenos in 1081.

"The history of the Empire is a monotonous story of the intrigues of priests, eunuchs and women, of poisonings, of conspiracies, of uniform ingratitude, of perpetual fratricides."

The history of the Byzantine Empire is an endless string of great disasters followed by recoveries and reconquests. The disasters are generally related to incompetent emperors or treacherous generals or courtiers. The number of emperors that are assassinated, blinded or deposed by their relatives or courtiers is astonishing. It seems that every other emperor is deposed in some horrific way and almost every emperor is faced with some sort of rebellion and civil war.

Powerful emperors such as Basil I the Macedonian, Nikephoros II Phokas, John I Tzimiskes or Basil II Bulgaroktonos expanded, recovered and consolidated the empire. However, their successors squandered all of the gains and almost led the empire to ruin.

As usual, Norwich builds on the work of great past historians such as Steven Runciman, Gibbons and JB Bury as well as ancient sources but also adds his own value judgements and humor into the mix.

"The history of the Empire is a monotonous story of the intrigues of priests, eunuchs and women, of poisonings, of conspiracies, of uniform ingratitude, of perpetual fratricides."

John Julius Norwich was born in London and served in the Royal Navy before receiving a degree in French and Russian at New College, Oxford. After graduation, he joined the Foreign Service and served in Belgrade, Beirut, and as a member of British delegation to the Disarmament Conference in Geneva. In 1954, he inherited the title of Viscount Norwich. In 1964, he resigned from the Foreign Service to become a writer. He was a historian, travel writer, and television personality.