Negative Positive
Title: History as told by a participant
Review: I was fascinated by Byzantine history anyway, but there is nothing quite like the Alexiad. Anna Comnena, daughter of the Emperor Alexius I, recalls in her old age the days of her father. Surely she is biased, but we can factor out the bias. She is also a surprisingly literary woman, more often quoting Homer than the Bible (though she quotes both, and her everyday language must have been much like the Greek of her quotations, by then 1000 to 2000 years old). She's also a great character. (She apparently tried to have her brother, the heir apparent, assassinated---well, where does one think the term "Byzantine" came from?) She also leaves us with a puzzle--she describes her father's fatal disease but she has no way of knowing what it was. It sounds like cancer to me. Read the book and get back to me on that!
Is the review positive or negative? 