One of the most important accounts of the Middle Ages, the history of Niketas Choniates describes the Byzantine Empire from 1118 to 1207. Niketas provides an eyewitness account of the sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade.

Presents the history of the Byzantine Empire from the sixth to the fifteenth century in terms of the political events, art, literature, and thought of Byzantine society.

Of the three major branches of Christianity, Orthodoxy is the least known and most misunderstood. The A to Z of the Orthodox Church provides students, researchers, and specialists with a desk encyclopedia of the theology and theologians, saints, sinners, places and events of the Eastern Church. Two millennia of the religion are surveyed in over five hundred concise entries, concentrating primarily on the last 150 years. Includes an overview of the early Church through the Byzantine and Russian Empires, into the present multinational Orthodox presence in the ecumenical movement. Many of the general entries cannot be found elsewhere in English, and the comprehensive compilation of biographies of 19th- and 20th-century Orthodox theologians (American, Russian, Greek, and many other nationalities) is published here for the first time. This book includes a detailed 4,000-year chronology, illustrations, extensive bibliography, and an appendix listing the current canonical patriarchs and autocephalous churches.

The Byzantine Empire, fragmented and enfeebled by the Fourth Crusade in 1204, never again recovered its former extent, power and influence. Its greatest revival came when the Byzantines in exile reclaimed their capital city of Constantinople in 1261 and this book narrates the history of this restored empire from 1261 to its conquest by the Ottoman Turks in 1453. First published in 1972, the book has been completely revised, amended, and in part rewritten, with its source references and bibliography updated to take account of scholarly research on this last period of Byzantine history carried out over the past twenty years.

"Rich and illuminating." Literary Review A landscape of high mountains and narrow valleys stretching from the Black to the Caspian Seas, the Caucasus region has been home to human populations for nearly 2 million years. In this richly illustrated 2-volume series, historian and explorer Christoph Baumer tells the story of the region's history through to the present day. It is a story of encounters between many different peoples, from Scythians, Turkic and Mongol peoples of the East to Greeks and Romans from the West, from Indo-European tribes from the West as well as the East, and to Arabs and Iranians from the South. It is a story of rival claims by Empires and nations and of how the region has become home to more than 50 languages that can be heard within its borders to this very day. This first volume charts the period from the emergence of the earliest human populations in the region – the first known human populations outside Africa - to the Seljuk conquests of 1050CE. Along the way the book charts the development of Neolithic, Iron and Bronze Age cultures, the first recognizable Caucasian state and the arrival of a succession of the great transnational Empires, from the Greeks, the Romans and the Armenian to competing Christian and Muslim conquerors. The History of the Caucasus: Volume 1 also includes more than 200 full colour images and maps bringing the changing cultures of these lands vividly to life.

This superb volume provides the first genuinely global one-volume history of the rise and development of the Christian faith. An international team of specialists takes seriously the geographical diversity of the Christian story, discussing the impact of Christianity not only in the West but also in Latin America, Africa, India, the Orient and Australasia.

The Fourth Crusade (1202-4) was one of the key events in medieval history The fall of Constantinople to the Venetians and the soldiers of the fourth crusade in April 1204 was its climax. It ensured that Byzantium’s days as a great power were over. It equally ensured that westerners would dominate the Levant – the lands of the old Byzantine Empire –until the end of the middle ages. This book asks just how important was the Fourth as a turning point in the Middle East.. The broad setting is the encounter of Byzantium with the West within the framework of the crusades. Differences of outlook and interest meant that this encounter was soon overburdened with mutual distrust. 1204 was some kind of a solution and created situations scarcely conceivable even two years before when the fourth crusade set sail from Venice.