The End of Byzantium

Resumen del libro

Jonathan Harris is professor of the history of Byzantium at Royal Holloway, University of London.

"A remarkable book, which offers numerous fresh insights and weaves a gripping and deeply moving story that constantly startles us with its newness, its originality, and its balance. Byzantines, Turks, Latins - Harris breathes new life into these long-dead characters and makes us understand both their choices and the circumstances that led them to make those choices. This is history as it should be written - an epic tale that rouses our imaginations and captures our sympathies as effectively as it explains and informs." - Colin Wells, author of Sailing from Byzantium

"Harris is fully in command of this Islamic conquest and records a saga seething with treachery and avarice with rich political overtones and giant cannonades. Christendom is at flashpoint in this scholarly journey into a barbaric age."-Colin Gardner, Oxford Times

"Harris offers plenty of serious scholarship, and a useful amount of background."-John Hinton, Catholic Herald

"Jonathan Harris's new account of the fall of Constantinople in 1453 is a welcome and highly readable treatment of one of the most important events in world history. The author knows his sources inside out and his book is a fine work of scholarship. But he also handles his subject with narrative momentum and descriptive flair, and he never loses sight of the humanity involved in these twilight years of a once-great empire."-Norman Housley, author of Fighting for the Cross

"Lucid; extremely well written with an excellent array of quotes and spread of information."-Michael Angold, Reviews In History

'Harris interrogates the evidence sensitively ... showing how the realities of power in the Eastern Mediterranean rendered simple notions of patriotism and heroism irrelevant. ... What Harris's lucid narrative demonstrates is that there was no clear East-West, Muslim-Christian split.' - Times Literary Supplement
Harris's book tells and oft-told tale in a fresh way.
- Brian G. H. Ditcham, Gillingham, Kent, England