"Works like this, if only there were more of them, would undo the mischief done by Gibbon. Because the master ignored Byzantium, considered it a wretched Eastern perversion of the glory that was Rome, disparaged and excoriated and condemned it—because of Edward Gibbon's foolish prejudices and unforgivable ignorance, we in the West still know next to nothing of the glory that was the Byzantine Empire. And yet it was Byzantium that preserved Christianity when the barbarians were feasting upon human flesh in Christian Rome; it was Byzantium that gave Russia (not to mention Serbia, R6mania, Bulgaria, and assorted other states) her culture; and it was Byzantium that held the gates shut against the barbarian invaders from the East until the final collapse in 1453. This new study, concentrating as it does upon
social history, is a most welcome addition to the still too meagre library of works on the Second Rome." Reviewed by Daniel Weiss, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)