Michael Angold¿s book is a clear, concise and authoritative history of the successor state to the Roman Empire, known as the Byzantine Empire. It was named after Byzantium, which Emperor Constantine I rebuilt in 330ad as Constantinople and made the capital of the entire Roman Empire. Angold begins in the heart of Byzantium, the city of Constantinople from which a new Empire emerged. He shows how the foundation and growth of the city altered the balance of the Roman empire, shifting the centre of gravity east. He describes the emergence of political factions and their impact on political life and traces the rise of Islam. Angold concludes his book with an account of the end of Imperial Byzantium and the division of the empire into three distinct civilizations (except on Sicily, where Islam, Orthodoxy and Catholicism co-exist uneasily).