Word: byzantium
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...work embraced the full range of late antiquity and early medieval art, from Anglo-Saxon Northumbria through Rome to Byzantium, according to a family-issued obituary...
Kublai Khan's family rules China. Korea and Mongolia from Dadu (today's Beijing), but related Mongol khanates in central Asia and Russia are virtually independent if not hostile; and the once subservient (and Buddhist) Il-Khans of Persia have converted to Islam. Meanwhile, drawn by the decay of Byzantium, Osman and his Turks germinate the Ottoman Empire in Anatolia...
That's why so much Roman culture survived the disintegration of the Western Empire. The most prolific memes had long since spread to Byzantium if not beyond, and would keep replicating themselves even as Western Europe struggled to regroup. Thus the astrolabe would eventually be reintroduced to the area via Islamic culture, which thrived during the early Middle Ages. Meanwhile, in Asia, key memes would arise--the spinning wheel, even printing--and some would migrate all the way to Europe...
...then the investigation of Lee had devolved into a bureaucratic Byzantium. The Albuquerque agents filed their warrant request with the Justice Department in July 1997. Officials there concluded that the FBI did not have sufficient proof that Lee posed a national-security threat grave enough to merit a raid on his computer. Exasperated FBI authorities appealed to Attorney General Janet Reno, but she wouldn't budge. Attempts to get more goods on Lee turned up nothing. Says a veteran counterespionage investigator of China's spy network: "They're everywhere, but it's hard to catch them doing anything...
...Catalans ran Catalunya, and Barcelona, for themselves. They were jealous of their independence and determined to sustain their own laws ; and language. From the 13th century through the 15th, their outward thrust created a Mediterranean trading empire that stretched from the coast of North Africa to the gates of Byzantium. With the money this brought home, a city grew: the greatest Spanish city of the Middle Ages. Even today the Barri Gotic, or Old City, of Barcelona, facing the port, contains in its winding alleys more functioning Gothic structures than any other such enclave in Europe...