Byzantium: beyond the cliché

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 motivationII. Historical Background - Byzantine beginningsIII. The High-School Narrative - History as a cultural mirrorIV. Recovering Truth - A never-ending goalV. Building Knowledge - Standing on the shoulders of giantsVI. Annotated Discoveries - Leo the Mathematician, for exampleVII. A Translational Discovery - From Arabic to Greek, surprisinglyVIII. Arrows of Causality - Consequential greatnessIX. Decline - A matter of opinion?X. Extracting Meaning - Interpreting human experiencesXI. Ever-Moving Targets - Arab-Greek bilingualism and its implicationsAbout 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 focused yet 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/.