Welcome to Season Two! I hope you like the updated look of the blog.
As I said in Tuesday’s post, I am narrowing the focus of this blog for this season. Over the last couple of months, I have become fascinated by the Byzantine Empire, and as a result I have decided to blog about my research into that period of history.
I will blog about other things, but as often as I can, I’ll discuss what I’m learning about the Byzantines: the eastern Roman Empire, which stood for 1,123 years from the time that the Emperor Constantine move the capitol of the Roman Empire there in 330 AD until the city of Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks on June 4th, 14531.
I offer this disclaimer: I’m new to the field of historical research. I’ll try to be as disciplined as I can, but I will likely make some rookie mistakes. If you, dear reader, are a historian yourself, I’ll appreciate any feedback you can offer on my efforts.
My intention is to both maintain a conversational tone (it’s a blog, after all) and subject any historical writing I do to the best level of academic rigor I can manage within this context. I don’t see much evidence that citing in blogs is done to this standard, but The Chicago Manual seems to me to offer the best solution to these two seemingly conflicting ambitions. I’ll start by using a summary of the 15th ed., as that is what I currently have access to, but will move to the 17th ed. as soon as I can acquire a copy.
Also under the heading of disclaimers, I do realize that there are many people who’ve devoted a lifetime to delving into the incredibly rich history of the Empire. I may or may not have much of interest to show someone like that, especially at first. My enthusiasm comes from the several fascinating things about the period that I’ve learned, beginning with the fact that no one from that period of history thought of themselves as a “Byzantine2“, and my hope to make the case that those eleven hundred years are much more important to the shape of the world as it is today than most people realize.
I’m also nerdy enough to believe that some people think it’s fun to learn new stuff. If you’re willing to follow along, I will try to share my journey to Byzantium in as entertaining a way as I can. My hope is that you’ll find the place as fascinating as I do.
Still, this blog will not be solely focused on doings a thousand years and more ago: I have other interests, and I will write about them here. Think of these posts as letters from your geeky friend Diane. To wit: Your geeky friend Diane has stumbled, via one of her random-ish fits of curiosity, into a topic that is richer and more crucial than she expected. Now she wants to tell you what she’s learning, because she’s excited about it, but doesn’t want to become a bore with only one topic in her head.
Notes
1. Speros Vryonis, Byzantium and Europe (New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1970), 189-92
2. Anna Komnene, The Alexiad, trans. E. R. A. Sewter, rev. Peter Frankopan (New York: Penguin Classics, 2009), 5
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