Ocean State Libraries

Gibbon's masterpiece, which narrates the history of the Roman Empire from the second century A.D. to its collapse in the west in the fifth century and in the east in the fifteenth century, is widely considered the greatest work of history ever written. This abridgment retains the scope of the original, but in a compass equivalent to a long novel. Casual readers now have access to the full sweep of Gibbon's narrative, while instructors and students...

The memoir of Justinian II, a 6th century Byzantine emperor whose nose is cut off after he is overthrown by rebels. He is exiled, but will return to regain his throne and punish his mutilators.

The Singularity-the looming point of no return when Artificial Intelligence surpasses human cognitive abilities, with consequences no one can foresee, and only a handful of people understand. Rusty Mullins, ex-Secret Service, has never heard of the Singularity. He only knows that after the deadly challenges of his last job for security firm Prime Protection, he swore he'd stop risking his life on assignments. Then his good friend Ted Lewison, head...

Lord Chamberlain John spends his days counseling Emperor Justinian and passes the small hours of night in conversation with the solemn-eyed little girl depicted in a mosaic on his study wall. He never expected to meet her in a public square or afterwards find her red-dyed corpse in a subterranean cistern. Had the mysterious woman truly been the model for the mosaic years before as she claimed? Why had she sought John out? Who wanted her dead—and

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In the second half of the tenth century, Byzantium embarked on a series of spectacular conquests. By the early eleventh century, the empire was the most powerful state in the Mediterranean. Yet this imperial project came to a crashing collapse fifty years later, when political disunity, fiscal mismanagement, and defeat at the hands of the Seljuks and the Normans brought an end to Byzantine hegemony. By 1081, Byzantium's very existence was threatened. How...

"The Holy Roman Empire is the setting for [this] historical romance . . . focusing on the Byzantine princess who ruled as regent for her son, Otto III."-Kirkus Reviews The powerful story of the tenth-century Byzantine princess Theophano, who was sent to be the wife and Empress of Otto II, son of Otto the Great, the Holy Roman Emperor. It is a long journey from the surviving Roman Empire in the East to the devastated Empire in the West....

Carlo Zeno, a well-to-do Venetian merchant whose residence is now Constantinople, has been charged with obtaining a slave girl for his friend Marco Pesaro back in Venice. His loyal servant and secretary Omobono has found the incompabably beautiful Zoe (known as Arethusa to her potential owner), but Carlo finds himself in the difficult situation of wanting to set her free, or perhaps keep her to himself. This dramatic scenario is set in Constantinople...

Johnny Dixon and Professor Childermass discover a trolley which transports them back to Constantinople in 1453 as the Turks are invading the Byzantine Empire.