Judith Herrin is professor of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies at King’s College, London. Her books include The Formation of Christendom, A Medieval Miscellany and Women in Purple. Her most recent book is Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire (Penguin, 2007)

Recent articles

Besides politics and literature Edward Said’s other great love was Western (‘classical’) music. Here someone who knew him and heard him play reflects on the metaphorical power of music to symbolise the resolving of stubborn human difference.

In the perspective of history, George W Bush’s programme for Europe is flawed, Judith Herrin argues. Byzantine reality, not classical rhetoric, is the indispensable resource for modern understanding of the European Union’s responsibilities to its citizens and neighbours.