Very engaging narrative of the life of the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Kommenos. Despite protestations to the contrary by Anna, the work is not free from the biases of the author, however, this does not lessen the value of the work. ( )

Surprisingly modern and enjoyable to read. ( )

Anna Comnena's history of the reign of her father, the Emperor Alexius. After a while, the sheer blizzard of invasions, rebellions and betrayals gets to be a trifle overwhelming, and with so many characters changing sides, getting blinded, or whatnot, one can be forgiven, I think, if one is confused. You certainly get an insight into how, well, Byzantine the Byzantine Empire was. Bitter old woman in her dotage. ( )

I have a better opinion of this source than Edward Gibbon, who was just not fond of Byzantine Literary culture. Anna was a child of the emperor Alexius Comnenus who re-organized the empire after the disaster at Manzikert. This is also a basic book for the vision of the Western crusaders, and also as a social history of the later Empire. I believe this is an able translation, and hope more people will read one of the first books about Medieval Europe from an outside stance. ( )

I enjoyed the undercurrent of gleeful malice and all of the lurid eye-gouging, but I didn't understand why everyone seemed to have the same name, why they had all married each other's cousins, and why they all wanted to kill each other. The footnotes assumed I'd need help figuring out who the Gorgon was, and other references to Greek mythology, but provided no assistance with any of the Byzantine names, titles, dates, or battles. Not even a time line. I suppose that if I had known anything whatsoever about Byzantine history, I may have enjoyed the book more. As it was, all I learned was that they were really, really into gouging out eyes. ( )