Status
Available
Call number
Collections
Publication
Abacus (2023), 448 pages
Description
"Beginning in 69AD, the so-called Year of the Four Emperors and spanning to 138AD, the death of Hadrian, Pax presents a narrative history of Rome at the height of its power. From the gilded capital to the barbarous realms beyond the frontier, historian Tom Holland offers a tour of the most famous episodes in Roman history"--
Media reviews
"Throughout his meticulous narrative, Holland demonstrates how the stability of the so-called peace was maintained through martial violence both in Rome and abroad. Roman history buffs will want to take a look."
"A capably rendered history of Rome’s more-or-less golden age."
"Holland’s superb storytelling takes us right into this era as viewed from every standpoint (including our own), offering fresh and vivid insights into well-worn history."
"Of course, contemporaries might have seen things differently, as Tom Holland shows in this masterly and thoroughly enjoyable history of the ‘golden age’ of Rome, which carries us from the shambles that followed the revolt against Nero in AD 68–9 to the start of Hadrian’s reign."
"And Holland writes about Rome with a Gibbonesque flair that both informs and entertains."
However, laying such a heavy stress on questions of how the book could have been more sensibly titled may be seen as neglecting evident reasons of promoting and attention-catching. If the book had simply been called, for example, “Roman History from the Fall of Nero to the Death of Hadrian” it
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might easily have been perceived by general readers as an academic text not intended for them. Nothing prevents professional historians from reading it as a well-written narrative that recounts Roman history from the fall of Nero to the death of Hadrian in a vivid and illustrative manner. The reader is provided with a wide variety of information on political, cultural, military, and societal matters in numerous excursions. Nevertheless readers, academic or not, who consult the book with the expectation to find some deeper-reaching reflection on the nature and the coming to be of ‘Roman PAX’ may perhaps be somewhat disappointed. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member vguy
Excellent. Description of Vesuvius overwhelming Herculaneum and Pompeii is masterly. Mainly from th PoV of the 2 Plinys. Overall gives a good sens of numerous emperors of whose names are familiar enough but I didn't really know their stories ( Domitian Trajan Hadrian, even Nero who tends just to be
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a caricature and is mainly in the previuous volume) Show Less
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2023
Physical description
448 p.; 9.21 inches
ISBN
1408706989 / 9781408706985