Sailing from Byzantium

How a Lost Empire Shaped the World

By: Colin Wells

Narrated by: Lloyd James

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, was a magnificent empire that bridged the ancient and modern worlds for more than 1,000 years. Without Byzantium, the works of Homer and Herodotus, Plato and Aristotle, Sophocles and Aeschylus, would never have survived.

The story of Byzantium is a real-life adventure of electrifying ideas, high drama, colorful characters, and inspiring feats of daring. In Sailing from Byzantium, Colin Wells tells of the missionaries, mystics, philosophers, and artists who, against great odds and often at peril of their own lives, spread Greek ideas to the Italians, the Arabs, and the Slavs.

Their heroic efforts inspired the Renaissance, the golden age of Islamic learning, and Russian Orthodox Christianity, which led to a new alphabet, new forms of architecture, and one of the world's great artistic traditions.

The story's central reference point is an arcane squabble called the Hesychast controversy. It pitted humanist scholars, led by the brilliant, acerbic intellectual Barlaam, against the powerful monks of Mount Athos, led by the stern Gregory Palamas, who denounced pagan rationalism in favor of Christian mysticism.

Within a few decades, the light of Byzantium would be extinguished by the invading Turks, but not before the humanists found a safe haven for Greek literature. And the debate between rationalism and faith would continue to be engaged by some of history's greatest minds.

Fast-paced, compulsively readable, and filled with fascinating insights, Sailing from Byzantium is one of the great historical dramas, the absorbing story of how civilization's flame was saved and passed on.

©2006 Colin Wells (P)2006 Tantor Media, Inc.

Critic reviews

"A superb survey of Byzantium's many cultural bequests." ()
"Wells brings vividly to life this history of a long-lost era and its opulent heritage." (Booklist)
"This history is a needed reminder of the debt that three of our major civilizations owe to Byzantium. Highly recommended." (Library Journal)

informative

I learned a lot from this book. I am glad that I bought it. It answered many questions that I have hadi for a very long time.

did you ever wonder why the Renaissance happened?

We learn in school school that the Renaissance happened because people in Europe discovered the wonderful heritage and knowledge of the ancient world. what they don't teach is they learned it from Byzantium. The fall of Byzantium to the Turks in 1452 triggered the Renaissancein Italy by the refugees from Byzantium who brought he accumulated knowledge and legacy of the ancient world had been living in Byzantium all along. that knowledge was brought back to the West . similarly have you heard how wonderful Arabic science and mathematics was in medieval times, both in the Middle East and in Spain. again blame this on the byzantines. have you ever wondered why there are all these strange Christian freelance in the East who are not part of the Catholic Church where did they come from? the truth is every major city at the old Roman Empire had its own patriarch. the patriarch of Rome took his see out of the church because of the disagreement with the Roman emperor in Byzantium after Christianity was 1,000 years old. this is a wonderful book for westerners to read it sets the record straight that we owe a huge debt to Byzantium. Sailing for Byzantium is a great book.

Not a first read for the period.

I would recommend this book to those who are already students of the period. It is a difficult read. I made it through and did follow much but my hair line receded from all that flew over my head. As with most historians Wells attempts to show the pivotal influence of his topic in shaping the rest of history. Byzantine influence was no doubt a factor in the Arab, Slav, and European worlds, but the avalanche of detail obscures the point to the casual reader.

The narration is adequate.

I just want to give a star rating. If you force me

If you could sum up Sailing from Byzantium in three words, what would they be?

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Who was your favorite character and why?

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What about Lloyd James’s performance did you like?

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Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

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Any additional comments?

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For dedicated students of the age

A scholarly work that will be primarily of interest to dedicated students of the age, Sailing from Byzantium chronicles the profound influence that the 1000-year old Byzantine Empire had on 1) Europe and the Renaissance, 2) Slavic countries (Russia and the "Third Rome") and 3) the Islamic world. Of particular interest to me were the Byzantine humanists who played a critical role in the transmission of Hellenic thought and classical knowledge to the world. The eminent scholar, Chrysoloras, and other Byzantine humanists carried by hand many of the ancient Greek writings to from Constantinople to early Renaissance Italy and were profoundly influential on the flowering of new thought and the intense creativity of the time.