The Roman World

Routledge Worlds

by John Wacher (Editor)

When originally published in 1987, this book was hailed as a landmark in the study of the Roman World. Now back in print with a new preface by the author, it is still the most comprehensive survey of the Roman World available. Ranging from the founding of Rome in the eighth century BC, and throughout the Empire and beyond this book will continue to be an essential resource on the subject for many years to come.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

936 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Aithne · Rating 2 out of 5]

An older book (from the late 80s) which was re-issued at the beginning of 2000s in unchanged form. That's always a con - you have no idea how much of all the stuff you're reading about is still up-to-date, which makes learning from such books tricky. It also reads as 'older', as it puts insane amount of focus on military matters. (Honestly, the 'Frontiers' part gave me a sort-of PTSD. I can close my eyes and still see that damn map of Africa, with its 120 marked place-names). Somewhere around 1/3 into the entire book I realised I still hadn't read a word about how those people lived - only how their armies were structured and where exactly the borders were at which point of history. Which is not unimportant, of course, but the proportions were way off for me. Did we really need 50 pages for each of the four main frontiers? For comparison, Miranda J. Green's chapter about provincial cults was seven pages long. Seven. You get someone like Miranda Green to contribute to your book and give her seven pages to share her knowledge? What a total waste. Why even bother including it then?

That being said, the non-military chapters were usually interesting (which in short means that volume two was way cooler than volume one); personally I especially loved the one about mining, challenging as it was. Hey, if we end up in some dystopian future and I desperately need to pump off water from my below-water-level field, now I'll know how to do it! I also have to begrudgingly admit that even though I suffered a lot through the 'Frontiers', they did teach me a lot of things I hadn't known - and probably I never would've learned if I was left entirely to my own devices. So there's that.

But I'm glad it's over. Now I need a reading break.