Why am I passionate about this?
I am Professor of Classics at George Mason University. I learned about ancient Romans and Greeks in my native Germany, when I attended a humanist high school, possibly the oldest in the country. (It was founded during the reign of Charlemagne, as the eastern half of the Roman Empire was still flourishing.) My mother once informed me that I betrayed my passion for stories long before I could read because I enthusiastically used to tear pages out of books. In my teens I became fascinated with stories told in moving images. I have been a bibliophile and, em, cinemaniac ever since and have pursued both my obsessions in my publications.
Martin's book list on ideological and popular uses of ancient Rome
Why did Martin love this book?
Fast ran afoul of the House Committee on Un-American Activities and was sent to prison for contempt of Congress.
To him, as to Karl Marx and others, the gladiator Spartacus, who led history’s best-known slave revolt (73 to 71 B.C.), symbolized the proletariat’s revolution against capitalist oppressors and depraved imperialists.
Despite some dubious history and one distasteful distortion concerning the Romans’ exploitation of slaves, Fast’s 1951 novel is a stirring tale, intended “so that the dream of Spartacus may come to be in our own time.”
When no publisher would touch his book, Fast had it printed and distributed on his own.
The screenplay for Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation was by Dalton Trumbo, another HUAC victim. His screen credits for Spartacus and, a little earlier, for Exodus ended the blacklist.
1 author picked Spartacus as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
The best-selling novel about a slave revolt in ancient Rome and the basis for the popular motion picture.