Byzantium: Beyond the Cliché

Book excerpt: This book is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Maria Mavroudi, Professor of History at UC Berkeley. Maria Mavroudi specializes in the study of the Byzantine Empire and this wide-ranging conversation explores her extensive research on the Byzantine Empire and how it has repeatedly been undervalued by historians despite its having been a military and cultural powerhouse for more than a millennium. This carefully-edited book includes an introduction, Beyond the High-School Narrative, and questions for discussion at the end of each chapter: I. Becoming A Byzantinist - Inspiration and motivation II. Historical Background - Byzantine beginnings III. The High-School Narrative - History as a cultural mirror IV. Recovering Truth - A never-ending goal V. Building Knowledge - Standing on the shoulders of giants VI. Annotated Discoveries - Leo the Mathematician, for example VII. A Translational Discovery - From Arabic to Greek, surprisingly VIII. Arrows of Causality - Consequential greatness IX. Decline - A matter of opinion? X. Extracting Meaning - Interpreting human experiences XI. Ever-Moving Targets - Arab-Greek bilingualism and its implications About Ideas Roadshow Conversations Series: This book is part of an expanding series of 100+ Ideas Roadshow conversations, each one presenting a wealth of candid insights from a leading expert in a relaxed and informal setting to give non-specialists a uniquely accessible window into frontline research and scholarship that wouldn't otherwise be encountered through standard lectures and textbooks. For other books in this series visit our website (https://ideas-on-film.com/ideasroadshow/).