Lost to the West, by Lars Brownsworth

“Lost to the West”, by Lars Brownsworth, is a short (about 300 pages) popular history of the Eastern Roman Empire, from the time of Diocletian in the late 3rd century to Constantine XI, the last Emperor, who fell in battle in a last stand against the Ottoman Turks below the shattered walls of Constantinople.

It’s not at all scholarly, with no footnotes, but engagingly written. Brownsworth prevents the fall of the Eastern Empire as a long tragedy, with short bursts of glory under the hand of capable Emperors, but ultimately doomed by short-sighted aristocratic squabbling and selfishness in face of the implacable Muslim threat. He also goes to great lengths to show how the Byzantine Empire shielded Western & Eastern Europe alike from the Muslims for hundreds of years, and how the Byzantines passed on the cultural legacy of old Rome and Greece to the West after Constantinople’s fall.

History aside, there is a good deal of romance about the Byzantine Empire, isn’t there? Constantinople, the last city of the eternal Roman Empire, standing ever-defiant against a foe it cannot overcome. Some people think J.R.R. Tolkien based Minas Tirith in “The Lord of the Rings” upon Constantinople and its fall.

Of course, no Rohirrim arrived to save Constantinople.

(That would have to wait for John III Sobieski at the Battle of Vienna, 240 years later.)

Overall, a good history of Byzantium for the general reader.

-JM