Byzantium: a world civilization (review)

Reviews 265 previous page has had to explain at length the curious absence of Erasmus from much of the story. Similarly, Jardine's suggestions about a new context for reading More's Utopia possess considerable plausibility (pp. 121, 175-80). However, one wonders if a speculative and circumstantial reconstruction of how a copy of Utopia now at Yale University came to be bound with several works designed to teach introductory Greek is a quite sufficient basis on which to assert that the appearance of Utopia as a 'print event' appears to have been associated with the provision of access to the world of Greek learning (p. 180). More broadly, one might wonder if a peculiarly m o d e m notion of advertizing and self-promotion is not at times being projected backwards on to earlysrxteenth -century evidence (see e.g., pp. 71-72)). Reservations aside, Jardine's book is a major achievement. It expands our sense of what is involved in writing intellectual history by showing just how relevant to it are the history of the book and publishing history. Anyone interested in Erasmus and Northern humanism will need to read Jardine carefully. She has achieved the remarkable feat of bringing Erasmus down to earth, escaping the hagiographical tone of much writing on him, without the need for explicit debunking or hostility. Might not that be the very definition of good historical revisionism? Glenn Burgess Department of History University of Canterbury Laiou, Angeliki A. and Henry Maguire, eds, Byzantium: a world civilization, Washington, Dumbarton Oaks, 1992; paper; pp. vii, 162; 82 plates; R.R.P. ? This introduction to the Byzantine world arose from the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Dumbarton Oaks Centre for Byzantine Studies in Washington D.C. through the donation in 1940 by Robert Bliss and his wife Mildred of their Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection to Harvard University. All except one of the papers in this commemorative volume were originally delivered in 1990. The final paper by Henry Maguire on 'Byzantine art history in the second half of the twentieth century' was added after a symposium held the following year. The topics were chosen to demonstrate the greatness of Byzantium and the centrality of its role in world history; accordingly, there is some overlap 266 Reviews between the contributions. More importantly, given the nature of the occasion on which these papers were originally delivered, there is not much that is highly analytical of, and nothing that is critical of, Byzantium's role. Milton Anastos, who originally came to Dumbarton Oaks in 1941, gives an account of the institution itself and the role it has played in Byzantine studies over the last 50 years. Indeed, it would be hard to overestimate the Centre's role in bringing togedier scholars of diverse background and in issuing publications on subjects ranging from die literary to the bibliographical and the archaeological. Byzantinists in the 1990s have reason to be grateful for the vision of the Blisses and will find this survey of Dumbarton Oaks publications useful. In the next chapter 'Byzantine civilization, a world civilization' Speros Vryonis explains the way Greek and Christian elements fused to form Byzantine civilization. This in turn transmitted, on die one hand, Hellenic influence to the Muslim world and, on the otiier, both Christian and classical elements to the Slavs and later to the Latin West. Vryonis stresses the continuity of Byzantine culture to the present day. This general introduction, with a useful bibliography, foreshadows die following two chapters: 'Byzantium and the Slavic world' by Dimitri Obolensky and 'Byzantium and the Islamic world' by Irfan Shahid. All three present different aspects of the diffusion of Byzantine culture, each taking a highly positive view of its own particular emphasis. N o attempt is made in this volume to compare the validity of the different approaches, but students could do so using the bibliographies at the end of each chapter. 'Byzantium and the West' by Angeliki Laiou acknowledges die complexity of the relationship between these two representatives of medieval Christendom and provides a good and balanced summary. The presence of two chapters on Byzantine art gives an accurate representation of its...