Rome

By Greg Woolf,

Book cover of Rome: An Empire's Story

Book description

Rome in the archaic age was a minor satellite between the Etruscan and Greek world. This book traces the expansion of Roman influence first within Italy, then around the Mediterranean world and finally, at breakneck speed, deep into Europe, out to the Atlantic, along the edge of the Sahara and…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Rome as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This is a great read on the way that Rome became an empire. It puts the whole story of the city of Rome and what it developed into (i.e. the biggest power of the ancient world and a paradigm for many empires that followed) into context and into the history of the Mediterranean world. The book is so useful to read because it is well written and contemporary, but it also helps us to understand Hannibal. This is because Rome's version of Carthage and Hannibal is the only version that we have to deal with, Hannibal in many ways becomes…

This book provides a brilliant and engagingly written overview of the long-term development of Rome from a small settlement in central Italy to the point where the city controlled an enormous empire stretching across the Mediterranean and beyond. How was it that Rome managed to control such a vast territory for so long? And what finally caused its power to decline? Woolf’s command of structural change in the Roman world, economic, cultural, and environmental, as well as political, is unparalleled. He grapples with a huge range of evidence, from archaeology, as well as ancient texts, to present a compelling account…

From Catharine's list on Roman emperors behaving badly.

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Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

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Interested in Rome, the Roman Empire, and politics?

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