"Paperback - Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire by Judith Herrin
It was Byzantine from its beginning. Re-founded in AD330 as Constantinople and known today as Istanbul, the city of Byzantium was the heart of an extraordinary empire. The successor to Rome, under its 90 consecutive emperors and 125 patriarchs, it lasted for some 1,100 years until the Ottoman Turks took it at last in 1453 and another empire began. Before then, by repelling Muslim conquest, Byzantium made Europe possible. As Herrin puts it, Europe “could not have existed had it not been shielded and inspired by what happened farther to the east in Byzantium”."
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