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I have been fascinated by ancient Greece and Rome since I first saw Italy and Greece as a teenager, revisiting them whenever I can. I studied ancient history at Cambridge University and have written eight books about it, most recently The Colosseum. After living in Paris, Rome, and London, I am now based in Wiltshire in southwest England, almost within sight of Stonehenge. There is a small megalith outside my own house.
This book has the best illustrations of the two main cities of antiquity that l have ever seen. Besides superb photographs (all in colour) of the ruins today, they include Peter Connolly’s brilliant reconstructions of buildings of all sorts: houses, palaces, baths, temples, forums, hippodromes, theatres, amphitheaters, insulae (blocks of flats), bars and aqueducts, plus styles in furniture, clothing, and hair. All are shown in colourful detail, many with cutaway illustrations that recreate city life of 2000 years ago with wonderful vividness. They are complemented by Dr. Hazel Dodge’s lucid, informative text. The first part covers Athens at its democratic peak under Pericles around 434BC, the second Rome at its imperial zenith some 500 years later, when it was the greatest city on earth.
Superb, detailed reconstructions of buildings provide the starting-point for a vivid exploration of these two great cities and the lives of the people who inhabited them. Peter Connolly's illustrations and reconstructions have a unique authority, with their blend of superb draughtsmanship, imagination, and meticulous research. The text appeals to a wide spectrum of readers, from young adults to professional historians.
The Beatles are widely regarded as the foremost and most influential music band in history and their career has been the subject of many biographies. Yet the band's historical significance has not received sustained academic treatment to date. In The Beatles and the 1960s, Kenneth L. Campbell uses The…
Born and raised in New Zealand I got hooked on history as a child and began university life as an ancient and medieval double major studying everything from the classical Greeks and Romans to Charlemagne and the Crusades. By the time I came to Oxford to write my PhD, I had decided that my greatest interest lay in the dramatic transformation which saw classical antiquity evolve into medieval Christendom. I've been fortunate enough to write and teach many different aspects of that transformation, from the Roman Republic to early Christianity and the Goths, and I'm currently Associate Professor in Ancient and Late Antique History at Royal Holloway, in the University of London.
Named for the river that Julius Caesar crossed when he invaded Italy and began the civil war which brought the Roman Republic to its knees, this book offers a sweeping account of the Republic’s fall and has been rightly described as narrative history at its best. All the major characters are vividly presented, from Marius and Sulla to Pompey, Cicero and Caesar, in prose that manages to remain readable and fast-paced while spanning almost 400 pages. Tragedy is arguably more apparent than triumph, understandably in a book devoted to the collapse of the Republican order. But the glory of the Republic does also shine through, and the story is told on a larger scale than my book would have allowed.
The Roman Republic was the most remarkable state in history. What began as a small community of peasants camped among marshes and hills ended up ruling the known world. Rubicon paints a vivid portrait of the Republic at the climax of its greatness - the same greatness which would herald the catastrophe of its fall. It is a story of incomparable drama. This was the century of Julius Caesar, the gambler whose addiction to glory led him to the banks of the Rubicon, and beyond; of Cicero, whose defence of freedom would make him a byword for eloquence; of Spartacus,…
I have been fascinated by ancient Greece and Rome since I first saw Italy and Greece as a teenager, revisiting them whenever I can. I studied ancient history at Cambridge University and have written eight books about it, most recently The Colosseum. After living in Paris, Rome, and London, I am now based in Wiltshire in southwest England, almost within sight of Stonehenge. There is a small megalith outside my own house.
Robin Lane Fox, best known for his books on Alexander the Great, has produced a superb overview of ancient history, from the emergence of Greece c.776BC to the Roman empire’s zenith under the emperor Hadrian (reigned AD117-138). He takes a firmly narrative approach, which makes for a thrilling read. His focus is on the lives of great men such as Pericles, Alexander, and Julius Caesar and on key political and military events rather than on cultural and social factors. While his epic approach may not impress all academics, it will probably still be read with enthusiasm long after more specialist works have been forgotten. Lots of illustrations, some in colour. Ideal for the general reader.
The classical civilizations of Greece and Rome once dominated the world, and they continue to fascinate and inspire us. Classical art and architecture, drama and epic, philosophy and politics-these are the foundations of Western civilization. In The Classical World , eminent classicist Robin Lane Fox brilliantly chronicles this vast sweep of history from Homer to the reign of Hadrian. From the Peloponnesian War through the creation of Athenian democracy, from the turbulent empire of Alexander the Great to the creation of the Roman Empire and the emergence of Christianity, Fox serves as our witty and trenchant guide. He introduces us…
In 1929, a dark secret at the heart of a Hungarian farming village was finally exposed. For more than 15 years, Nagyrev had harbored a group of serial killers, one of the largest murder rings ever recorded. They came to be known…
I have been fascinated by ancient Greece and Rome since I first saw Italy and Greece as a teenager, revisiting them whenever I can. I studied ancient history at Cambridge University and have written eight books about it, most recently The Colosseum. After living in Paris, Rome, and London, I am now based in Wiltshire in southwest England, almost within sight of Stonehenge. There is a small megalith outside my own house.
Dictionaries are not usually meant to be fun but this fact-packed book is so well-written that it is a joy to read. Wonder who on earth was Cicero? What the Punic wars were all about? How the Greeks defeated the Persians at the Battle of Salamis? What was so special about Greek theatre? And why Rome conquered Britain? You will find all the answers here. Besides military and political events, it covers literature, philosophy, art, religion, sport, and society, all the way from 776BC and the first Olympic Games to the end of the Roman Empire in the west in AD476.
Ranging from the year of the first Olympic Games in 776 BC to the fall of the Roman Empire in AD 476, this dictionary contains over 2000 entries providing a reference guide to the ancient Greco-Roman world. It includes entries on personalities, events, politics, literature, art and society.
I was born in the UK, in Lichfield, but moved to Italy in 1976 and to Rome in 1982. Over the
past forty years, Rome has become my city, my home, and my inspiration, as it has for
hundreds of thousands of other people during its millennia as caput mundi. It isn’t always the
easiest place to live, but it’s varied and colourful and endlessly stimulating. It’s provided a
backdrop to several of my novels and not only that. Rome is a character in its own right,
boisterous, elegant, breathtakingly beautiful, unutterably sordid. Roma è casa mia!
I discovered Bernhard—miraculously—in a provincial train station in southern Italy, where the bar had a selection of books on sale.
This was when Bernhard translations into English were hard to find, so my early experience of the writer, in my opinion one of the most extraordinary of his generation, was in Italian. His final novel, Extinction, is set in Rome and it’s a classic of Bernhardian nihilism, scratching at the itch of the absurdity that is life in the face of death.
Bernhard’s Rome is the yin of intellectual freedom to the suffocating and hypocritical yang of Austria. In the end, what I love most about this book is probably its exhilarating contempt for mediocrity and its capacity, I’ll admit it, to make me laugh out loud at just how awful life really is.
The last work of fiction by one of the twentieth century’s greatest artists, Extinction is widely considered Thomas Bernhard’s magnum opus.
Franz-Josef Murau—the intellectual black sheep of a powerful Austrian land-owning family—lives in Rome in self-imposed exile, surrounded by a coterie of artistic and intellectual friends. On returning from his sister’s wedding on the family estate of Wolfsegg, having resolved never to go home again, Murau receives a telegram informing him of the death of his parents and brother in a car crash. Not only must he now go back, he must do so as the master of Wolfsegg. And…
I was born in the UK, in Lichfield, but moved to Italy in 1976 and to Rome in 1982. Over the
past forty years, Rome has become my city, my home, and my inspiration, as it has for
hundreds of thousands of other people during its millennia as caput mundi. It isn’t always the
easiest place to live, but it’s varied and colourful and endlessly stimulating. It’s provided a
backdrop to several of my novels and not only that. Rome is a character in its own right,
boisterous, elegant, breathtakingly beautiful, unutterably sordid. Roma è casa mia!
I’ve always seen Muriel Spark as a kindred spirit, and her experience of Rome as mirroring my own, albeit on a more luxurious scale (although I did once live round the corner from her flat near Piazza Farnese).
Of the novels she set in Italy, my favourite is probably The Public Image, a story of revenge and dissimulation that captures the dark heart of the city at a time when it was known as Hollywood on the Tiber. It’s a wonderful portrait of what lay beneath the dolce vita and also, presciently, has a lot to say about celebrity culture and its manufacture. Listen up, influencers!
Spark chooses Rome, "the motherland of sensation," for the setting of her story about movie star Annabel Christopher (known to her adoring fans as "The English Lady-Tiger"), who has made the fatal mistake of believing in her public image. This error and her embittered husband, and unsuccessful actor, catch up with her. Her final act is only the first shocking climax-further surprises await. Neatly savaging our celebrity culture, Spark rejoices in one of her favorite subjects-the clash between sham and genuine identity-and provides Annabel with an unexpected triumph.
I grew up thinking that being adopted didn’t matter. I was wrong. This book is my journey uncovering the significance and true history of adoption practices in America. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women’s reproductive rights places…
I’m a scientist, engineer, and writer who has written on a wide range of topics. I’ve been fascinated by mythology my entire life, and I spent over a decade gathering background material on the myth of Perseus and Medusa, and came away with a new angle on the origin and meaning of the myth and what inspired it. I was unable to present this in a brief letter or article, and so decided to turn my arguments into a book.
The book is still in print, and has been cited numerous times by scholarly journals and books. It formed the basis for the History Channel series Clash of the Gods (in which I appear).
Adrienne Mayor, a historian of ancient science and folklorist at Princeton University, looks at classical myths that ultimately owe their inspiration to fossils found and interpreted by the Greeks and Romans.
Stories of Giants and Monsters grew up around the giant and mysterious fossil bones that resembled nothing they knew. In particular, she relates the image and stories of griffins to ceratopsian fossils, like those of Protoceratopsand Psitticasaurus.
She also shows how dwarf elephant fossils may have inspired the myth of the Cyclops. An excellent read.
Griffins, Cyclopes, Monsters, and Giants--these fabulous creatures of classical mythology continue to live in the modern imagination through the vivid accounts that have come down to us from the ancient Greeks and Romans. But what if these beings were more than merely fictions? What if monstrous creatures once roamed the earth in the very places where their legends first arose? This is the arresting and original thesis that Adrienne Mayor explores in The First Fossil Hunters. Through careful research and meticulous documentation, she convincingly shows that many of the giants and monsters of myth did have a basis in fact--in…
I was born in the UK, in Lichfield, but moved to Italy in 1976 and to Rome in 1982. Over the
past forty years, Rome has become my city, my home, and my inspiration, as it has for
hundreds of thousands of other people during its millennia as caput mundi. It isn’t always the
easiest place to live, but it’s varied and colourful and endlessly stimulating. It’s provided a
backdrop to several of my novels and not only that. Rome is a character in its own right,
boisterous, elegant, breathtakingly beautiful, unutterably sordid. Roma è casa mia!
Pasolini’s films, Mamma Roma and Accattone, were among the reasons I decided to move to Rome in the first place.
Their blend of poetry and wretchedness chimed with my own vision of life at that time and I seized the chance to improve my knowledge of the city, of Italian and of Roman dialect, by reading his first novel Ragazzi di Vita, as soon as I arrived in the city.
Ragazzi di vita are hustlers, doomed from birth by circumstances outside their control, and I was drawn to the novel’s dark non-conformist romanticism, its refusal to compromise and the sheer texture of the language, which I only partly understood. It’s like Kerouac, but for real.
The “provocative” novel about hard-living teenagers in poverty-stricken postwar Rome, by the renowned Italian filmmaker (The New York Times).
Set during the post–World War II years in the Rome of the borgate―outlying neighborhoods beset by poverty and deprivation―The Street Kids tells the story of a group of adolescents belonging to the urban underclass. Living hand-to-mouth, Riccetto and his friends eke out an existence doing odd jobs, committing petty crimes, and prostituting themselves. Rooted in the neorealist movement of the 1950s, The Street Kids is a tender, heart-rending tribute to an entire social class in danger of being forgotten. Heavily censored…
I've had a passion for all things Roman since visiting various ancient Roman sites around Britain as a child with school and with my dad. Over the last fifteen years I've been writing novels set in Ancient Rome. I now have ten published Roman historical fiction novels to my name spanning three series, as well as a short story collection and a novella. My Carbo of Rome series, set in the reign of Tiberius, follows a traumatised veteran of the legion as he tries to retire in peace in Rome, but is constantly dragged into the criminal underworld of the poorest parts of the city.
Heliogabalus became Emperor aged 14, manipulated into power by his mother and grandmother.
As a relative and possible illegtimate son of Caracalla, he appears in my Imperial Assassin series in the days before he rose to power. He is considered by many to be one of the worst Roman Emperors on account mainly of his outrageous lifestyle.
He married a Vestal Virgin, and a male charioteer, was reputed to have prostituted himself and to have turned the palace into a brothel, and offered a fortune to any doctor that could turn him into a woman.
He scandalised the religious Romans by replacing Jupiter as head of the gods with the eastern god Elagabal, of whom he was high Priest. But to modern eyes, a more sympathetic reading is of a teenage boy with a confused sexual orientation who unexpectedly had unlimited power and wealth thrust upon him.
'Buy the book; it's very entertaining.' David Aaronovitch, The Times
A Financial Times, BBC History and Spectator Book of the Year
On 8 June 218 AD, a fourteen-year-old Syrian boy, egged on by his grandmother, led an army to battle in a Roman civil war. Against all expectations, he was victorious.
Varius Avitus Bassianus, known to the modern world as Heliogabalus, was proclaimed emperor. The next four years were to be the strangest in the history of the empire.
Heliogabalus humiliated the prestigious Senators and threw extravagant dinner parties for lower-class friends. He ousted Jupiter from his summit among the…
The first and only full-length biography of Hazel Ying Lee, an unrecognized pioneer and unsung World War II hero who fought for a country that actively discriminated against her gender, race, and ambition.
This unique hidden figure defied countless stereotypes to become the first Asian American woman in United States…
I studied art history in Florence, Italy, while there for six months during college. I’ve always loved Italy and am fascinated with art and World War II, because my father was a top-turret gunner on a B-17, flying missions over Europe, including on D-Day. WWII historical fiction is my favorite topic to read and write. I write in a variety of genres, from women’s fiction to historical romantic thrillers and romantic suspense to paranormal. My latest project is a cozy mystery series about an American college graduate who goes to work for a flailing Italian art detective agency in Florence and works with her sexy Carabinieri boyfriend (later husband), to solve Nazi stolen art crimes.
She’s known for her crime fiction, but this is her first foray into historical fiction and I fell in love with the book. It doesn’t necessarily have to do with art theft but it’s one of the best WW II books I’ve ever read.
I fell in love with her characters and didn’t want the book to end. She has a new book coming out (March 2023) called Loyalty about the rise of the Mafia in Sicily, which is also fascinating and unforgettable.
#1 bestselling author Lisa Scottoline offers a sweeping and shattering epic of historical fiction fueled by shocking true events, the tale of a love triangle that unfolds in the heart of Rome...in the creeping shadow of fascism.
What war destroys, only love can heal.
Elisabetta, Marco, and Sandro grow up as the best of friends despite their differences. Elisabetta is a feisty beauty who dreams of becoming a novelist; Marco the brash and athletic son in a family of professional cyclists; and Sandro a Jewish mathematics prodigy, kind-hearted and thoughtful, the son of a lawyer and…