Sailing from Byzantium

Starred review from May 29, 2006
In this deft synthesis of scholarship, classicist Wells shows how the Byzantines exerted a profound influence on all neighboring civilizations. Concrete examples still exist that testify to that influence—such as Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy—but this book focuses on the more ineffable products of culture that traveled from the Bosporus, influencing Western, Islamic and Slavic cultures. The story of Renaissance Europe's embrace of pagan learning is familiar, but Wells tells of a fascinating intellectual circuit that begins with the transmission of Greek learning to the newly powerful Arabs and leads to Averroës's commentary on Aristotle, Aquinas's use of this commentary and finally to the Byzantine Cydones's translation of Aquinas in the 14th century. By then, the dominant Orthodox movement of Hesychasm deemed pagan learning incompatible with Christian faith, forcing many humanists to the Catholic West. Wells devotes much space to the Hesychasts and blames them for this betrayal of Greek heritage and for weakening the empire before its final collapse in 1453, but duly credits them with shaping the Russian Orthodox Church and positioning Moscow as the Third Rome. This volume, which contains a useful glossary of historical figures, detailed maps and a time line, is a superb survey of Byzantium's many cultural bequests.

Starred review from June 15, 2006
Wells, an independent scholar specializing in Greek, Latin, and Byzantine topics, considers how Byzantium, the Eastern, Greek-language Roman Empire of the Middle Ages, influenced three successor civilizations -Western Europe, Islam, and the eastern Slavic world of the Balkans and Russia. In Part 1, Wells relates how Byzantine scholars and teachers, many fleeing the Turks, settled in 15th-century Italy, where they introduced ancient Greek literature to Western scholars and helped launch the humanist movement that contributed to the Italian Renaissance. In Part 2, he looks at Byzantium's contribution to Islamic thought -the scholars and translators who would introduce the Arab Muslims to Greek philosophy, medicine, and science, leading to a golden age of Arab science, which would eventually be repudiated by Islamic fundamentalists who sought to suppress the rational inquiry that was the basis of Greek philosophy and science. Next, Wells looks at the religious legacy that Byzantium transmitted to the eastern Slavic world -the Orthodox Christianity of the Slavic churches, resulting from tireless missionary work, which may be the most enduring legacy of Byzantium. This history is a needed reminder of the debt that three of our major civilizations owe to Byzantium. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries." -Robert J. Andrews, Duluth P.L., MN"

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2006
Wells begins his detailed book with a list of the major characters--51 of them, including humanists, monks, emperors, patriarchs of Constantinople, philosophers, historians, classicists, and prophets. The Byzantine Empire began in the early fourth century with the foundation of a new Christian capital, Constantinople, on the site of the old Greek city of Byzantium. It ended when the Ottoman Turks captured that city in 1453, making it the capital of their Islamic empire, which in territorial aspirations and imperial style essentially replaced the old Byzantine Greek Empire. Wells points out that more recent historical research has revealed a story of lasting achievement and vigorous expansion. He divides the book into three parts: "Byzantium and the West," discussing the Byzantine legacy to Western civilization; "Byzantium and the Islamic World," describing the rise of the Arab Islamic Empire on former Byzantine lands in the Middle East; and "Byzantium and the Slavic World," exploring the religious side of the Byzantine legacy. Wells brings vividly to life this history of a long-lost era and its opulent heritage.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)