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Review title: A literary neutron star
Product review: Norwich warns the reader from the start that his single-volume condensation of more than a millennium of very complex history will be something of a horse pill (my term). I've long been intimidated by the thought of tackling the history of the Byzantine Empire, because of its incredible mass. This book, however, has provided me a toes-in-the-water experience, an overview and context, and the courage to delve one day into other books on the subject with narrower focus and more detail -- perhaps even to include the three acclaimed volumes by the same author, comprehensive in sum but said to be rich in anecdote and colorful elaborations. Dense as this book may be, the style is very good, and Norwich manages, with due British reserve overall, to inject bits of Twain-ish wryness here and there, as when he follows description of an emperor's gruesome face by telling us that the ruler was not as pleasant as he looked!
