The Institute of Byzantine Studies of the National Research Foundation of Greece under the guidance of its director Prof. Taxiarchis Kolias has recently published a considerable number of books.  The present author reviews one of them relevant to his field of studies. Dr. Sofia Patoura-Spanou has produced a very welcome book that treats the attitude of the Byzantines in the early period of the Byzantine Empire towards the other peoples both in the West and in the East.  In the first part, the author focuses her attention on the reign of Justinian I (527-565) who, stimulated by his endless ambition, attempted to become “the governor of the ship of the world".