Instruct: Classify Amazon reviews into positive or negative sentiment
Query: BYZANTIUM: THE APOGEE - JOHN JULIUS NORWICH

The Dark Ages prove not as dark. Illuminated by a wealth of detail and insight, the second part of Norwich's trilogy proves as captivating as the first. Where Western Europe struggled for centuries to overcome the effects of the barbarian invasions, Byzantium struggled for centuries to avoid sinking as low. Beset on all sides it survived and acted as a beacon as well as a prize for all those around it and pace Pirenne, acted as the third leg if not the main prop of the post Roman oikumene that surrounded the Mediterranean by 800 A.D.The desperate external and vicious internal struggles are crackingly well told with plenty of maps appendices and bibliographies to help what could be a struggle for the reader unfamiliar with such an exotic and almost alien period of history.You can almost taste the wine and smell the incense