{"product_id":"phantom-byzantium-by-anthony-kaldellis-9780226847139","title":"Phantom Byzantium","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHow the West appropriated aspects of the eastern Roman empire while portraying it as inferior.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eUnveiling the ideological foundations of Byzantine studies, \u003cem\u003ePhantom Byzantium\u003c\/em\u003e is a pioneering survey of western European perceptions of the eastern Roman empire (also known as Byzantium) spanning late antiquity to World War II. Through ten chronological chapters, Anthony Kaldellis makes the case that western Europe gradually formed its identity by adopting prestigious cultural elements from the eastern empire but simultaneously portraying the east as inferior.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe West modeled its Roman imperial style on Constantinople while minimizing the latter as Greek rather than Roman; appropriated a host of Christian traditions from the east while casting the east as schismatic, heretical, or treacherous; and, during the Renaissance, used classical Hellenic philology from Greek scholars before marginalizing them as unworthy bearers of that tradition.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis orientalizing impulse worked to buttress western exceptionalism and resulted in the fictitious construction of \"Byzantium\" as Europe's evil doppelgänger, embodying the worst versions of traditions fundamental to European identity and casting the region as despotic, superstitious, and degenerate.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eExplaining the creation, history, and functions of the ideological construct of Byzantium in the western imagination and European self-fashioning, this book has critical implications for contemporary views of European history.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47306925834476,"sku":"9780226847139","price":71.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/6d204fdefb9590b1de7c81a05f2825ee.jpg?v=1771099939","url":"https:\/\/bookhero.co.nz\/products\/phantom-byzantium-by-anthony-kaldellis-9780226847139","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}