The history of Nikephoros Bryennios focuses on military events of the 1070s and the careers of Romanos Diogenes, Caesar John Doukas, Nikephoros Bryennios the Elder, and especially the young Alexios Komnenos. The manuscript is no longer extant, and the text is known from a seventeenth- century transcription and a fragment.

Nikephoros Bryennios was a significant political and literary figure of the early twelfth century. He was married to Anna Komnene, the daughter of the emperor Alexios I Komnenos (1081– 1118). The Bryennios family, based in Adrianople, had made a bid for imperial power immediately prior to Alexios's accession. Nikephoros's grandfather, Nikephoros Bryennios the elder, served as dux of Bulgaria and governor of Dyrrachium in the 1070s. In 1077, he rebelled against Michael VII (1071– 1078), the same year that Nikephoros Botaneiates rebelled in the eastern provinces. Botaneiates succeeded in gaining control of Constantinople and sent his general, Alexios Komnenos, to defeat Bryennios. Alexios was successful in capturing Bryennios, who was then blinded. Botaneiates, however, allowed Bryennios to keep all of his property and gave him new titles so that the Bryennios family remained a significant power in Thrace. The marriage of the younger Nikephoros to Anna around the year 1097 can be seen as an effort to reconcile the grand families of the twelfth- century aristocracy to Alexios's rule.

At the time of Alexios's death, there may have been an unsuccessful movement to have Nikephoros become emperor instead of John II (1118– 1140), although it is difficult to tell how serious these efforts were. Niketas Choniates attributes the failure of this movement to Nikephoros's passivity. The strength of Choniates's writing is such that Nikephoros has gone down in history as a weakling because he chose not to murder his brother- in- law. Regardless of what happened, Nikephoros retained an honored position in John's court and campaigned with John. Nikephoros died after returning from John's campaign to Antioch in 1137.

Nikephoros's history describes the rise of Alexios Komnenos to imperial power. In the preface Nikephoros says that he writes in response to the request of his mother- in- law, Eirene Doukaina, who wanted someone to write the history of Alexios.