This is the story of the greatest empire the world has ever known.
Simon Baker charts the rise and fall of the world's first
superpower, focusing on six momentous turning points that shaped
Roman history. Welcome to Rome as you've never seen it before -
awesome and splendid, gritty and squalid. From the conquest of the
Mediterranean beginning in the third century BC to the destruction
of the Roman Empire at the hands of barbarian invaders some seven
centuries later, we discover the most critical episodes in Roman
history: the spectacular collapse of the 'free' republic, the birth
of the age of the 'Caesars', the violent suppression of the
strongest rebellion against Roman power, and the bloody civil war
that launched Christianity as a world religion. At the heart of
this account are the dynamic, complex but flawed characters of some
of the most powerful rulers in history: men such as Pompey the
Great, Julius Caesar, Augustus, Nero and Constantine. Putting flesh
on the bones of these distant, legendary figures, Simon Baker looks
beyond the dusty, toga-clad caricatures and explores their real
motivations and ambitions, intrigues and rivalries. The superb
narrative, full of energy and imagination, is a brilliant
distillation of the latest scholarship and a wonderfully evocative
account of Ancient Rome.
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Review This Product
Mon, 26 Feb 2024 | Review
by: Tanya K.
Rating: 3.5 stars
Ancient Roman history without the boring bits! In this overarching and accessible introduction to the subject, Simon Baker has chosen to focus on six turning points (usually revolutions of some sort) that shaped the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. He starts off with Rome's origin myths (Romulus and Remus, the kidnapping of the Sabine Women), and follows Roman history through the kingship, the republic (and it's demise with Caesar and Augustus) and various turbulent stages of empire building, maintaining and losing, along with some notable historical figures. Baker includes such events as the Pyrrhic War, the Punic Wars and destruction of Carthage, various civil wars, the Jewish wars, and the early rise of Christianity. The book stops at the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire. An extra chapter on the Eastern Roman Empire would have been a nice addition. I also felt the transitions between chapters could have been handled better, or at least a time line included in the book, to bridge the intervening history not covered in the book. The book does however, include six very useful and well drawn maps.
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