The World of Byzantium (The Great Courses 367) (Audiobook) (Repost)

Try this thought experiment: Mentally chart the main phases of European history to 1500. If you're like most of us, you probably hopscotched from classical Greece through Alexander the Great, from the Rome of the Caesars to the Renaissance, with a detour into the long post-Roman hiatus known as the Dark and Middle Ages. But this storyline is woefully incomplete, even misleading. Why? It leaves out Byzantium. And you're not alone. The mental charts drawn by most educated people would show the same gap. As Professor Kenneth Harl notes: "Far from being merely the eastern rump of the old Roman Empire, Byzantium was without a doubt the greatest state in Christendom through much of the Middle Ages. "This story is far more important than any number of tales of palace intrigue, and is not as well known as it deserves to be. "These lectures are a small attempt to help redress the balance."