Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire

Used
Hardcover
2006
$4.25

Ancient Rome is the story of the greatest empire the world has ever known. Focusing on six momentous turning points that helped to shape Roman history, Simon Baker's gripping narrative charts the rise and fall of the world's first superpower - a political machine unmatched in its brutality, its genius, its lust for power. From the conquest of the Mediterranean beginning in the third century BC to the destruction of the 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. This is Rome as we've never seen it before - awesome and splendid, gritty and squalid. Accompanying a landmark BBC television series, Ancient Rome is a fresh, fast-paced history which addresses themes about the nature of power that are as relevant today as they were two thousand years ago. This book contains a foreword by Dr Mary Beard, Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge.

Synopsis

Ancient Rome is the story of the greatest empire the world has ever known. Focusing on six momentous turning points that helped to shape Roman history, Simon Baker's gripping narrative charts the rise and fall of the world's first superpower - a political machine unmatched in its brutality, its genius, its lust for power. From the conquest of the Mediterranean beginning in the third century BC to the destruction of the 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. This is Rome as we've never seen it before - awesome and splendid, gritty and squalid. Accompanying a landmark BBC television series, Ancient Rome is a fresh, fast-paced history which addresses themes about the nature of power that are as relevant today as they were two thousand years ago. This book contains a foreword by Dr Mary Beard, Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 336
Edition: 1
Publisher: BBC Books
Published: 14 Sep 2006
ISBN 10: 0563493607
ISBN 13: 9780563493600
Book Overview: ANCIENT ROME presents an authoritative but accessible big-picture narrative of the most influential empire in history.

Media Reviews

Praise for Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire : This is a history of Rome that combines vivid drama and a gripping storyline with a keen alertness to bigger historical questions, and to the challenges of drawing a clear narrative thread out of the evocative, but complicated and diverse, ancient evidence. - Mary Beard, from the foreword. Lively and well-researched: an excellent read - Peter Heather, author of The Fall of the Roman Empire .

Author Bio

Simon Baker read Classics at Oxford University. In 1999 he joined the BBC's award-winning History Unit where he has worked on Timewatch and a wide range of programmes about the classical world. He is the Development Producer on the BBC One series Ancient Rome - The Rise and Fall of an Empire. This is his second book. Mary Beard is a Professor of Classics at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Newnham College. She has written widely on the history and culture of the ancient (and modern) world. Her most recent books are The Parthenon and (with Keith Hopkins) The Colosseum. She is Classics Editor of the Times Literary Supplement and her major study of the Roman Triumph will be publishes by Harvard University Press in 2007.