Anthony Kaldellis

I was a bit skeptical of this book based on its title because I thought I more or less knew what Byzantium was: a monarchy where the ruler had absolute power. But as it turns out, the author convinced me that this idea is at least to some extent a product of misinformed research from the 1930s which is still being perpetuated. He argues that the common people in Byzantium were hardly obeisant subjects. If the emperor did not live up their expectations, there was a serious risk of rebellion and ultimately even civil war. The legacy of Rome was a legacy of Roman identity and republican ideals. The turbulent history of the Byzantine monarchy should be considered in this light.

I liked this book because (a) the obvious objection that comes to mind in the first chapters (how did the Byzantine people exercise their purported powers in the absence of any kind of election?) is actually answered in subsequent chapters (the author's answer is that civil wars were essentially political contests), (b) the author also looks beyond the imperial city and brings the provinces into the discussion, and (c) he recounts the historiography of Byzantium in some detail, pointing out a number of influential early studies which seem to have started the general narrative of unchallenged theocracy. All in all this book is a refreshing reminder that historical truths can and should be questioned and that historical interpretations can be hamstrung if they are unquestionably tied to predetermined vantage points.… (more)

A wonderful historian who seems to write a great deal, and this told me everything I need to know (in the first instance) about Byzantine writings on Turks and Mongols. He offers thought-provoking suggestions on why the Byzantines 'knew a lot about barbarians but wrote little'. It's an enormous pity they didn't, but here is a guide to what they did write. With the attitudes and structures of thought that might 'interpret the silence.' This subject has not been gone into because of that silence, but as Kaldellis argues, and proves, we can learn a lot about them from what they chose not to talk about, glossed over or ignored -- in writing, while not in the streets of their city, which bustled with barbarians.

He finds that unlike Western Europe, the New Rome kept the old Roman/barbarian construct intact, and Christian identity did not much change things: it was Roman identity that mattered, such that Christianized barbarians remained uncivilized and weren't much affected, in Byzantine eyes, by conversion. Late in the piece Mongols, for a short time, in three pieces of writing, overturned centuries of stereotypes about Skythians because of their success.

He's a bit too dismissive of Anna Komnene (I thought we were over that?): I find her Turk portraits richer than he does. I enjoyed his rant about historians who sneer at Byzantine classifications -- e.g. 'Skythians' in an age of Seljuqs -- since our usages are every bit as artificial.… (more)