As a freelance journalist in Italy, I covered, for Timemagazine, the Wall Street Journal, and others, tough topics: terrorism, the Mafia, the heroin traffic which passed via Sicilian laboratories to the U.S. At a certain point I found this overly negative. After taking a course in Rome on archaeology, by chance I was asked to direct a BBC half-hour documentary on Pompeii. In so doing, I realized that it was time to focus upon the many positive elements of Italian life and history. From that life-changing documentary came this book on Pompeii, on which I worked for five rewarding years. My next book was on historical Venice.
British author Robert Harris's best-selling novel Pompeii, published by Random House in 2003, is considered historically accurate. Its hero is Marcus Attilius Primus, a hydraulic engineer put in charge of the Pompeian aqueducts. When the flow of water into the town suddenly stops, Attilius explores Vesuvius in attempting to find the cause. This is not a whodunit but a whenwillit, said The Guardian in its enthusiastic review.
'A stunning novel . . . the subtlety and power of its construction holds our attention to the end' The Times
During a sweltering week in late August, as Rome's richest citizens relax in their villas around Pompeii and Herculaneum, there are ominous warnings that something is going wrong. Wells and springs are failing, a man has disappeared, and now the greatest aqueduct in the world - the mighty Aqua Augusta - has suddenly ceased to flow . . .
Through the eyes of four characters - a young engineer, an adolescent girl, a corrupt…
Classicist Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, a professor at Sidney Sussex College, was for fourteen years director of the British School in Rome. Among his highly recommended books are Rome's Cultural Revolutionand Herculaneum: Past and Future. Prof. Wallace-Hadrill, OBE, who directed the Herculaneum Conservation Project for fifteen years, currently specializes in studying the impact the ancient city has had upon the world.
The period of Rome's imperial expansion, the late Republic and early Empire, saw transformations of its society, culture and identity. Drawing equally on archaeological and literary evidence, this book offers an original and provocative interpretation of these changes. Moving from recent debates about colonialism and cultural identity, both in the Roman world and more broadly, and challenging the traditional picture of 'Romanization' and 'Hellenization', it offers instead a model of overlapping cultural identities in dialogue with one another. It attributes a central role to cultural change in the process of redefinition of Roman identity, represented politically by the crisis of…
The late Amanda Claridge, a professor at the University of London, introduces us to the ancient city in the book she co-authored: Rome: An Oxford Archaeological Guide, now on offer asRome, An archaeological guide. Over time, archaeology itself changes, and today's critics say that her presentation of up-to-date archaeology in Rome equally entrances both tourists and her fellow scholars. She taught at both Oxford and the University of London, as well as at Princeton University in the U.S.
The city of Rome is the largest archaeological site in the world, capital and showcase of the Roman Empire and the centre of Christian Europe.
This guide provides:
* Coverage of all the important sites in the city from 800 BC to AD 600 and the start of the early middle ages, drawing on the latest discoveries and the best of recent scholarship
* Over 220 high-quality maps, site plans, diagrams and photographs
* Sites divided into fourteen main areas, with star ratings to help you plan and prioritize your visit: Roman Forum; Upper Via Sacra; Palatine; Imperial Forums; Campus…
Edward Bulwer Lytton's influential 19th century novel The Last Days of Pompeii was inspired by a painting he had seen in Milan. He immediately rushed to Pompeii, where his book was published in 1834, by coincidence exactly when Vesuvius erupted. It became an immediate success and is still being published. As Benjamen Disraeli wrote that November, "A trembling spectator, I watched the artists till I was overcome by the phantasma, and was glad to find myself once more in the solitude of my armchair." Available in economic form. The book became an immediate success and is still being adapted to today's media.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) was a prolific novelist, poet and playwright in his day; in modern times, his work is considered much as Lovecraft described: “large doses of turgid rhetoric and empty romanticism.”
Originally published in 1834, "The Last Days of Pompeii" itself was probably the first novelization of the catastrophic event. The city was rediscovered in the mid-1700s and archaeological excavations followed soon after. Bulwer-Lytton was inspired to write his novel by the painting The Last Day of Pompeii by Karl Briullov, painted in the early 1830s.
"The Last Days of Pompeii" tells the story of the Athenian Glaucus, his…
Mary Beard, Cambridge University professor of classics and noteworthy TV personality, is the lively author of a number of books on the ancient world. Roman antiquity endured for a thousand years, and her most beloved book covers that millenium: SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome. SPQRis a renowned best seller which enchants even those who have scant knowledge of classical antiquity.
In SPQR, an instant classic, Mary Beard narrates the history of Rome "with passion and without technical jargon" and demonstrates how "a slightly shabby Iron Age village" rose to become the "undisputed hegemon of the Mediterranean" (Wall Street Journal). Hailed by critics as animating "the grand sweep and the intimate details that bring the distant past vividly to life" (Economist) in a way that makes "your hair stand on end" (Christian Science Monitor) and spanning nearly a thousand years of history, this "highly informative, highly readable" (Dallas Morning News) work examines not just how we think of ancient Rome but…
The city of Pompeii was buried in a volcanic eruption in AD 79, but its slow rediscovery began only after 1748. Burial had been virtually instantaneous, and what was found stunned the world because its vestiges, from paintings to homes and shops, foods and furniture, and even a brothel were in amazing condition, considering they had been underground for two millennia. The centuries of rediscovery since then have profoundly affected the entire world. This is the story of those effects upon art and architecture, politics and poetry, and even religion. Today the ruins of the city attracts 2.5 million visitors a year.
I have been writing for many years, and my main preference is political thrillers with criminal overtones. I first became interested in politics when I worked at several political conferences in the 60’s and 70’s. I have been involved in several criminal cases, including my own, and within my family, I have a nephew in the police force. For many years I have had the opportunity to mix with the upper tiers of society as well as the criminal classes and this has given me great insight into creating my characters and plots.
Pete West, a political columnist, travels to Prague to find a missing diplomat, later found murdered. He attempts to discover more about a cryptic note received from the diplomat and is immediately entangled in the secret Bilderberg Club’s strategy to form a world federation.
Pete meets a Czechian agent who wants asylum. She has a murdered EU Commissioner’s diary containing clues to the civil unrest planned by the club, encrypted in algebraic chess notations. West seeks answers and links up with retired MI6 officer Tosh. While escaping would-be captors, they decode enough chess moves to reveal the anarchy of the…
Pete West, a political columnist, travels to Prague to find a missing diplomat, later found murdered. He attempts to discover more about a cryptic note received from the diplomat and is immediately entangled in the secret Bilderberg Club’s strategy to form a world federation.
Pete meets a Czechian agent who wants asylum. She has a murdered EU Commissioner’s diary containing clues to the civil unrest planned by the club, encrypted in algebraic chess notations. West seeks answers and links up with retired MI6 officer Tosh. While escaping would-be captors, they decode enough chess moves to reveal the anarchy of the…
