The Grand Strategy Of The Byzantine Empire

By (author) Edward N. Luttwak; By (author) Luttwak, Edward N.
Short description/annotation:
This book is a broad, interpretive account of Byzantine strategy, intelligence, and diplomacy over the course of eight centuries that will appeal to scholars, classicists, military history buffs, and professional soldiers.
Description:

In this book, the distinguished writer Edward N. Luttwak presents the grand strategy of the eastern Roman empire we know as Byzantine, which lasted more than twice as long as the more familiar western Roman empire, eight hundred years by the shortest definition. This extraordinary endurance is all the more remarkable because the Byzantine empire was favored neither by geography nor by military preponderance. Yet it was the western empire that dissolved during the fifth century.

The Byzantine empire so greatly outlasted its western counterpart because its rulers were able to adapt strategically to diminished circumstances, by devising new ways of coping with successive enemies. It relied less on military strength and more on persuasion—to recruit allies, dissuade threatening neighbors, and manipulate potential enemies into attacking one another instead. Even when the Byzantines fought—which they often did with great skill—they were less inclined to destroy their enemies than to contain them, for they were aware that today’s enemies could be tomorrow’s allies. Born in the fifth century when the formidable threat of Attila’s Huns were deflected with a minimum of force, Byzantine strategy continued to be refined over the centuries, incidentally leaving for us several fascinating guidebooks to statecraft and war.

The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire is a broad, interpretive account of Byzantine strategy, intelligence, and diplomacy over the course of eight centuries that will appeal to scholars, classicists, military history buffs, and professional soldiers.

Table of contents:
* List of Maps * Preface * I. The Invention of Byzantine Strategy *1. Attila and the Crisis of Empire *2. The Emergence of the New Strategy * II. Byzantine Diplomacy: The Myth and the Methods *3. Envoys *4. Religion and Statecraft *5. The Uses of Imperial Prestige *6. Dynastic Marriages *7. The Geography of Power *8. Bulghars and Bulgarians *9. The Muslim Arabs and Turks * III. The Byzantine Art of War *10. The Classical Inheritance *11. The Strategikon of Maurikios *12. After the Strategikon *13. Leo VI and NavalWarfare *14. The Tenth-Century Military Renaissance *15. Strategic Maneuver: Herakleios Defeats Persia * Conclusion: Grand Strategy and the Byzantine "Operational Code" * Appendix: Was Strategy Feasible in Byzantine Times? * Emperors from Constantine I to Constantine XI * Glossary * Notes * Works Cited * Index of Names * General Index
Review quote:
The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire is written with a profound knowledge of the field, a thorough mastery of the sources and secondary literature, and a lively and engaging style that both specialists and general readers will appreciate.
Review quote:
Edward Luttwak makes a persuasive, well-documented argument that the Byzantines--given the continuity of their institutions, their sense of a historical mission, and their own manuals on statecraft and warfare--had a coherent strategy that enabled them to preserve an empire shielded by few geographical barriers and surrounded by a host of hostile neighbors.
Review quote:
One of America''s leading strategic minds...The traditional stereotype of the Byzantine Empire, established by Edward Gibbon in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, has undergone considerable revision of late, thanks to a renaissance of Byzantine studies, to which Edward Luttwak has