Rome: An Empire’s Story

In this passionately told exploration of the history of Rome, University of St. Andrews historian Woolf (editor, The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Roman World) peers closely at what enabled Rome to resist defeats and capitalize on victories, and how it evolved to face new needs and new threats. With dazzling detail, Woolf retells the long story from Rome’s birth in 753 B.C.E. to the republic, the empire, and the empire’s fall, not in the sixth century as is usually accepted, but in 711 when Muslims invaded Spain. As Woolf points out, complex forces were always at work. For example, in the final 100 years of the Republic, Roman literary and intellectual culture achieved its classic form amid bloody civil wars. The early Empire, by contrast, was at peace, with emperors focused on building projects and scaling back military expansion. The Roman Empire faded not only when outside forces invaded in the sixth and seventh centuries, but when internal strife tore it apart at the same time, borders shrank, and the empire collapsed back on itself. Woolf points out that western Christendom, Islam, and Byzantium were the empire’s heirs, each with its own imperial destiny. 31 b&w illus.; maps. Agent: Georgina Capel, Capel and Land (U.K.). (July)