Before Istanbul, it was Constantinople

You can always tell when I am hugely enjoying a book, because I mine it for a new aphorism for the heading of this blog. I'm currently reading Edward Luttwak's The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire, a masterly survey of how guile, geography, and a scrappy military enabled Constantinople to survive for eight centuries after Rome fell to the barbarians. (Indeed, the eastern empire actually reconquered for a time most of the Mediterranean lands once ruled from Rome.) We didn't learn nearly as much about Byzantium in school as we should have, or at least I didn't. Dark Ages? What Dark Ages? Constantinople kept the flame alive until well into the 13th Century. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford