A review of The Lost World of Byzantium by Jonathan Harris is almost impossible to write. Incidentally, the book is far from impossible to read, despite its rather dry style. The problem is the breadth and sheer extent of his subject, a subject that the author faces with enthusiasm and competence. The story often presents the casual reader with a difficult problem to negotiate, being the straitjacket of prejudice. And it is often a problem that we are not aware of, precisely because we are rarely aware of the assumptions that we bring to any experience. And this is precisely why we need books like this one by Jonathan Harris, because it can cut through what we clearly don’t understand. We need to confront preconceptions, because the process is always enlightening. But the process is also often challenging. However, rest assured that this challenge is rewarding at all times.
The challenge in the Lost World of Byzantium is faced head-on and from the start. We talk a lot about Rome and much less about Byzantium. We celebrate the achievements of the first and generally list the shortcomings of the second. We see Rome as noble, correct, and classic, while Byzantium is often corrupt, degenerate, rogue, and failure. And, as Jonathan Harris points out, we are constantly explaining why the Byzantine Empire ultimately failed. What we rarely acknowledge is that at its peak it was a larger empire than Rome’s and, more importantly, it actually lasted longer than its predecessor. And it was Christian from the beginning.
It is this perception of Byzantium as an eventual failure that Jonathan Harris dispels at first. It is also essential that he do so, since then we can appreciate the detail of the history of the empire in its own context, rather than in another imposed by our own preconceptions about a future that it never saw. In many ways, the history of the Byzantine Empire was the history of Europe from the 4th to the 15th century. The Ottoman expansion westward and its eventual conquest of the empire served to call attention to concerted action to defend Christianity. At least one previous attempt had dissolved into anarchy when the crusaders looted the very place they had set out to defend. The fall of Byzantium, however, made any future section gains irrelevant, because if the building collapsed, there would be nothing for anyone. And so the continent changed a bit after Lepanto.
Any reader of a history as long and complex as that of the Byzantine Empire, however, must take into account the size and scope of the author’s task. The Lost World of Byzantium may include around 150,000 words, but it is trying to cover more than a millennium of European history, not to mention also strips and eras of the history of the Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa. We soon learn not to regard the Byzantine Empire as a purely or even primarily European phenomenon, since regular conflicts are fought in the south and east, as well as north and west. What is clearer, however, is that an empire can wage war on its periphery and that war can result in the expansion or contraction of its territory. But if the empire makes war on itself in the center, then the threat to its security is existential. Jonathan Harris’s book recounts several occasions in which Byzantium survived such complete and painful intestinal transformations.
An insightful insight into The Lost World of Byzantium relates to the general role of religion in these transfers of power and, in particular, the ability of theology to create empires, rulers, dynasties, and perhaps states. Byzantium was founded when Constantine embraced Christianity. But this was only the beginning of the story as we perceive it. The early church was divided by schisms and heresies, particularly the Arian interpretation of the nature of Christ. From the perspective of our time, these theological differences may seem to have the meaning of disagreements over the exact count of angels on the head of a pin. But at that point, theological disagreements could lead to persecution, exile, and war. Long after the early church solved some of its self-generated puzzles, new theological differences emerged with similar consequences. It is a great achievement of Harris’s book that it manages to elevate what we might now consider arcane to the status of a live political debate. If the economic advantage conferred by the achievement and possession of power, as always, remained the goal, the political and ideological battlefield where that status was secured was often theological and only when we appreciate that role do we understand the history of this empire. , and perhaps also the history of the first and much of the second millennium of the Christian era.
If there is a criticism of this monumental work, it is that the need to narrate the holders of the throne sometimes makes history a mere list of tenants, a procession of kings who simply seem to come and go. The Johns, Michaels, and Constantines keep coming, counting forever, and sometimes it seems only the numbers change as each headline suffers his own conspiratorial fate, often remarkably similar to his predecessor. There are numerous child emperors, all with their own naked and ambitious protectors. And also history seems to reproduce itself when another owner marries to ensure peace and alliance, or pursues another cataloged military campaign against the north, south, east or west, as always with partial success. The mess, it seems, tends to continue.
Overall, the book deserves some criticism for not including a sufficient description of the social and economic conditions within the empire. Such diversity, both ethnic and religious, needs more detail to provide a picture of its complexity. There is little that conveys any feeling of what it was like to live, even in Constantinople itself, much less in the Byzantine Empire as a whole. But then, with an assignment of this size, any author must be selective. Jonathan Harris simply could not have included such material without doubling the size of an already huge book. And, given the author’s commitment and dedication to his subject, this absence should prompt most readers to explore his output further. This aspect has surely been covered elsewhere as well.
What is included are descriptions of greens and blues, pechenegs, basils, various seals, and numerous theodoras, along with Abbasids, Seljuks, Fatimids, and hordes of Constantines. If even one of these hits a blind spot, then Jonathan Harris’s book will help provide the missing understanding. In any case, it is surely complete. History is always much more than our preconceptions and any good writing on the subject should remind us of this fact. The Lost World of Byzantium provides an excellent opportunity to learn a great deal about this forgotten but crucial era of history.