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    The Glory of the Empire: A Novel, a History
    Unavailable
    The Glory of the Empire: A Novel, a History
    Unavailable
    The Glory of the Empire: A Novel, a History
    Ebook621 pages9 hours

    The Glory of the Empire: A Novel, a History

    By Jean D'Ormesson, Barbara Bray and Daniel Mendelsohn

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    The Glory of the Empire is the rich and absorbing history of an extraordinary empire, at one point a rival to Rome. Rulers such as Basil the Great of Onessa, who founded the Empire but whose treacherous ways made him a byword for infamy, and the romantic Alexis the bastard, who dallied in the fleshpots of Egypt, studied Taoism and Buddhism, returned to save the Empire from civil war, and then retired “to learn to die,” come alive in The Glory of the Empire, along with generals, politicians, prophets, scoundrels, and others. Jean d’Ormesson also goes into the daily life of the Empire, its popular customs, and its contribution to the arts and the sciences, which, as he demonstrates, exercised an influence on the world as a whole, from the East to the West, and whose repercussions are still felt today. But it is all fiction, a thought experiment worthy of Jorge Luis Borges, and in the end The Glory of the Empire emerges as a great shimmering mirage, filling us with wonder even as it makes us wonder at the fugitive nature of power and the meaning of history itself.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNYRB Classics
    Release dateMay 3, 2016
    ISBN9781590179666
    Unavailable
    The Glory of the Empire: A Novel, a History

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    Reviews for The Glory of the Empire

    4/5

    24 ratings2 reviews

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    • 2/5
      Though this is a very byzantinesque fantasy, the work was not engaging. There was some satire of the usual fake academic historical framing, but the book never takes off. There is so much scene setting, there's no episodes. The story is completely lacking in incidents, or indeed, events!
      So, it's unengaging, and I only finished it out of duty.
    • 5/5
      A sort of fantasy retelling of the history of Byzantium. Sometimes it works, producing more artistic results than reality, sometimes it seems clumsier. Overall, I liked it.