what do people think?

[saxonriseagain]

ive been reading this book its called destiny disrupted by tamin ansary its a history of the world through islamic eyes when i came across this and i quot in 622 the byzantine empire didnt wield much clout in its own region it was a superpower largely because it had no competition.is this right i always thought it was the superpower of the world what do you guys think?

[Hadrian I]

I have not read it, but I am reading Anna Comnena's books, and they are quiet good.
I am at book number 3, but at the moment I am taking a break from reading these books. They explain alot of different things occuring,
it would appear also, that the Seljuk Sultanite and the Byzantine Empire, are descent friends.

It also explains how Robert Guisard, the king of the Kingdom of Sicily came to power, and how the pope is at the present time.
There is quiet alot of rebellions and enemies the empire has to deal with, so saying they had no "competition" might be wrong,
but then again, these books are proably biased. Or yours might be.
There are so many things occuring in just these three books, it would be hard to explain it all...
But in the year 622 I do not know, I can't remember what I had read on wiki-pedia, around about that periode.

Hadrian.

[Ichon]

Well I don't know what the claim is trying to say. After WRE fell and the migrations in the following centuries were over the ERE was the only large centralized power that remained powerful so in a sense its old rivals were swept away. However new rivals quickly rose and ERE had never fully established Orthodoxy as the state religion successfully. The disputes with the various bishops some of which looked to Rome, some of which were independent and preaching different doctrines, and some which were loyal to the ERE Emperor as head of the Church was able to be exploited by the invading Muslims. ERE might not have had a single great power until the arrival of the Seljuks to fight against but it had numerous regional rivals which were often more difficult to deal with as soon as peace was made with one, another would invade.

[Javert]

And what was the Sassanid Empire?A rag tag association of barbarians east of ERE?They were equal to the ERE in almost every aspect,in economy,military,culture,population etc.This can be easily proven by the fact that despite the innumerable battles and campaigns fought between the two from the Caucasus to Syria noone was able to make a significant gain until the time of Heraclius at which point the Romans managed to gain the upper hand and push the Persians out of Syria.The very rise and success of Islam is because of the exhaustion both empires suffered from centuries of warfare,which in the end saw the Sassanid empire crumble and the Roman empre pretty much halved in size.Imho this historian seems to be biased against the ERE,but i havent read this book so it might be a missunderstaning of his writing?No historian worth his salt would ignore the Sassanids like he does.

[bɑne]

I fear this is going to be kicked over to Vestigia Vetustatis soon as I can't see the reference to Stainless Steel so far.