Sailing from Byzantium by Colin Wells

Sailing from Byzantium by Colin Wells

Book Review by Xinman Jiang

　　Sailing from Byzantium, the title reveals content of the book that it introduces how Byzantium influences the world through the ages. And this book is especially useful for who are interested in history and major in history. Because it has specific description of how Byzantium shaped itself history but also the world’s. It was written by Colin Wells who grew up in the Adirondack Mountains of northern New York State. From what he said in his website, he began write professionally from 1990s, and he wrote the book, Sailing from Byzantium, when he was working for Moss and Wilson in Santa Monica, California.

　　This book is separated into three parts. Part one mainly describes about Byzantium and the west. “ Travel to Italy, and you’ll find that Byzantium is never more than a stone’s throw away” (Wells, 9). Just like what the book tells us, Byzantium does not ever disappear from the world but on the contrast, it effects the west world deeply and has directly and indirectly connection with the west world. During six to ten centuries, Art and civilization of Byzantium had important and influential position among west countries. Because of relationship with Italy, Byzantium’s civilization was spread via Italy. During Medieval Ages, Byzantium was the successor and spreader of classic culture, and also the base of Christian civilization’s prosperous. Besides, Byzantium owed some Greek civilization that had effected on Renaissance, but not the initial motivation. However, with the development of western world modern times, the weakness of Byzantium’s conservatism and closure became more and more obvious. And at last Byzantium had to passed it’s responsibility of promoting civilization development on to newer countries, then it dropped out from history stage.

　Part two talks about Byzantium and the Islamic world. “ Near the end of the seventh century, the caliph Abdal-Malik decided to build a great monument to the Arab conquests of the previous half century...... Abd al-Malik was the ninth caliph to rule after the prophet Muhammad, and the