Both an introduction to the great civilization of Byzantium and a 50th anniversary celebration of the founding of the Byzantine Centre at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC, this collection of essays demonstrates the place of Byzantine civilization in world history and shows the role of Dumbarton Oaks in interpreting that civilization for what its founders called an everchanging present . The first essay, written by Milton Anastos - a scholar who first came to Dumbarton Oaks in 1941, one year after Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Bliss founded the Byzantine Cente - is devoted to the institution itself and to the role that it has played in Byzantine studies over the past 50 years. The following chapters, by Speros Vyronis, Dimitri Obolensky, Irfan Shahid, and Angeliki Laiou, discuss the relationship between Byzantium and its neighbouring civilizations of Islam, the Slavic countries, and Western Europe, and display the great legacy that Byzantium left to those cultures. Two final essays, by Gary Vikan and Henry Maguire, present Byzantine art, today the most prominent aspect of Byzantine achievements, and discuss its reception by modern critics and historians.