Burton Howard Burton 
Byzantium: Beyond the Cliche — A Conversation with Maria Mavroudi [EPUB ebook] 

This book is based on an in-depth conversation between Howard Burton and Maria Mavroudi, Professor of History at UC Berkeley. Maria Mavroudi specializes in the study of the Byzantine Empire and this wide-ranging conversation explores her extensive research on the Byzantine Empire and how it has repeatedly been undervalued by historians despite its having been a military and cultural powerhouse for more than a millennium. This carefully-edited book includes an introduction, Beyond the High-School Narrative, and questions for discussion at the end of each chapter:I. Becoming A Byzantinist — Inspiration and motivation II. Historical Background — Byzantine beginnings III. The High-School Narrative — History as a cultural mirror IV. Recovering Truth — A never-ending goal V. Building Knowledge — Standing on the shoulders of giants VI. Annotated Discoveries — Leo the Mathematician, for example VII. A Translational Discovery — From Arabic to Greek, surprisingly VIII. Arrows of Causality — Consequential greatness IX. Decline — A matter of opinion?X. Extracting Meaning — Interpreting human experiences XI. Ever-Moving Targets — Arab-Greek bilingualism and its implications About Ideas Roadshow Conversations Series: Presented in an accessible, conversational format, Ideas Roadshow books not only explore frontline academic research featuring world-leading researchers but also reveal the inspirations and personal journeys behind the research.