This volume comprises twenty-two papers on historical and historiographical themes presented in Athens at a congress commemorating the fall of Constantinople to the Fourth Crusade. The editor herself contributes a paper challenging those of us who have played up the notions of Christian fraternity and cooperativeness among participants on earlier crusading expeditions. She emphasises the threat posed by Bohemond's well-planned campaign of 1107–8 and also its significance in confirming pre-existing Byzantine suspicions about the ulterior motives of westerners making the ‘sacred journey’ to Jerusalem. The ‘brittle and vulnerable’ quality of imperial authority after the ‘progressively more autocratic’ regime of Manuel i Komnenos is brought out by M. Angold, whose emphasis on the competence of Alexios iii Angelos (at least in comparison with other late twelfth-century emperors) tallies with the re-evaluation of George Akropolites's somewhat neglected testimony presented by R. Macrides. Her revisionism sits well with T. Kolias's conclusion that the fourth crusaders enjoyed no overwhelming technological advantage. Morale was all, and the numerically superior citizens of Constantinople seem to have felt semi-detached from the struggle for the imperial throne. The crusaders, in contrast, lacked a tight command-structure; yet, as J. Riley-Smith points out, the interdependence of those soldiering on to Constantinople was bolstered through periodic general assemblies, ‘commons of the host’, where some major decisions were taken. B. Kedar reappraises the significance of those crusaders who diverted to Acre, concluding that they amounted to ‘a significant force’, fanning expectations that Latin-occupied Constantinople might provide a valuable forward base for future operations. The attitude of Innocent iii towards the Greeks under Latin occupation is discussed by A. J. Andrea: Innocent's position shifted from his having high hopes of Latinising their Church towards compromise in respect of certain rites; he remained wary of any Byzantine custom differing from the Latin rite, even if it did not flout Roman canon law. A balanced approach to the economic consequences of 1204 is taken by D. Jacoby. He argues that the Mediterranean and Black Sea shipping zones stayed essentially separate for more than a generation thereafter, swift as the Venetians were to exploit market opportunities north from Byzantium. The importance to the Venetians of the island of Crete as, in effect, bread-basket and vineyard is well-known, but C. Gasparis shows how, in the longer-term, intensive exploitation of agricultural resources prompted development of cities and provincial fortified settlements. Not that the Byzantines were wholly passive on the economic plane: C. Morrisson detects ‘a more favourable environment for local initiatives and investment’ as a result of Constantinople's loss of command of communications. Political fragmentation also prompted variations on the theme of divinely-instituted imperial monarchy. Would-be emperors in Epiros lacked sufficient material resources or time to develop fully-fledged justifications of their regimes although, as A. Stavridou-Zaphrakou notes, their senior churchmen mused on what might constitute legitimate authority in default of an orthodox emperor in Constantinople. In Nicaea, in contrast, disquisitions on political order abounded, some reaffirming traditional political thought but others breaking new ground. D. Angelov discusses this and notes the increasing use of the term ‘Hellenes’ to evoke a shared language and praiseworthy ancient past. Slavonic-speaking potentates exploited the power vacuum, and the aspirations of the Serbian Stefan ‘the first-crowned’ are analysed by L. Maksimović: Stefan sought validation of his regime from external figures, notably the pope, yet the Byzantine imperial order allowed fullest scope for his hegemonial ambitions, and he accepted from the Nicaean authorities recognition of his Church as autocephalous, rather than patriarchal. Regrettably, no study is devoted to the emergence of a second Bulgarian ‘empire’. But another imperial variant, instigated by the ‘Grand Komnenoi’ at Trebizond, is elucidated succinctly by S. Karpov, while M. Barber considers the problem posed by the influx of allegedly high-class relics into the west: a decree about ‘newly discovered relics’ at the Fourth Lateran Council was Innocent iii's response to this unintended consequence of 1204. B. Hamilton questions whether Innocent was aware of the activities of dualist heretics in the Balkans at the time of the Fourth Crusade: the papacy was quite slow to appreciate the possible links between Catharism and heretics further east, and dualists were able to operate unimpeded in Latin-occupied Constantinople. The overall standard of the papers in this volume is high. Those dedicated to the repercussions of 1204 occupy roughly half the volume, and offer the makings of a useful synthesis.