Download or read book Rome Plague Diaries written by Matthew Kneale and published by . This book was released on 2021-02-04 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Rome Plague Diaries written by Matthew Kneale and published by Atlantic Books (UK). This book was released on 2022-06 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A warm and affectionate portrait of a city and a people under lockdown during the Covid-19 crisis, from the award-winning author of Rome: A History in Seven Sackings. On the first morning of Rome's Covid-19 lockdown Matthew Kneale felt an urge to connect with friends and acquaintances and began writing an email, describing where he was, what was happening and what it felt like, and sent it to everyone he could think of. He was soon composing daily reports as he tried to comprehend a period of time, when everyone's lives suddenly changed and Italy struggled against an epidemic, that was so strange, so troubling and so fascinating that he found it impossible to think about anything else. lived in Rome for eighteen years, Matthew has grown to know the capital and its citizens well and this collection of brilliant diary pieces connects what he has learned about the city with this extraordinary, anxious moment, revealing the Romans through the intense prism of the coronavirus crisis.
Download or read book The Antonine Plague written by Charles River Editors and published by . This book was released on 2020-02-24 with total page 46 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes excerpts of ancient accounts *Includes a bibliography for further reading "[A]s the reign of Marcus Aurelius forms a turning point in so many things, and above all in literature and art, I have no doubt that this crisis was brought about by that plague.... The ancient world never recovered from the blow inflicted on it by the plague which visited it in the reign of Marcus Aurelius." - Barthold Georg Niebuhr "The Five Good Emperors," a reference to the five emperors who ruled the Roman Empire between 96 and 180 CE (Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius), was a term first coined by Machiavelli and later adopted and popularized by historian Edward Gibbon, who said that under these men, the Roman Empire "was governed by absolute power under the guidance of wisdom and virtue." Machiavelli explained, "From the study of this history we may also learn how a good government is to be established; for while all the emperors who succeeded to the throne by birth, except Titus, were bad, all were good who succeeded by adoption, as in the case of the five from Nerva to Marcus. But as soon as the empire fell once more to the heirs by birth, its ruin recommenced...Titus, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus, and Marcus had no need of praetorian cohorts, or of countless legions to guard them, but were defended by their own good lives, the good-will of their subjects, and the attachment of the senate." These 84 years also witnessed an impressive growth in the size of the Roman Empire. New acquisitions ranged from northern Britain to Arabia, Mesopotamia, and Dacia. Furthermore, existing possessions were consolidated, and the empire's defenses improved when compared to what had come before. A range of countries that had been client states became fully integrated provinces, and even Italy saw administrative reforms which created further wealth. With all of that said, according to some academics, the success these rulers had in centralizing the empire's administration, while undoubtedly bringing huge benefits, also sowed the seeds for later problems. After all, as so many Roman emperors proved, from Caligula and Nero to Commodus, the empire's approach to governance was predicated on the ruler's ability. When incompetent or insane emperors came to power, the whole edifice came tumbling down. Moreover, the success of the emperors ironically brought about the worst plague in Rome's epic history. Due to constant warfare on the borders and attempts to defend positions against various groups, Roman soldiers came into contact with foreign diseases, and they unwittingly brought them home when campaigns ended. This culminated around 165 CE, when an unidentified disease brought the empire to its knees and afflicted an untold number of individuals, one of whom may have been Lucius Verus, the co-emperor of Rome alongside Marcus Aurelius. In addition to the enormous number of casualties, which has been estimated at upwards of 5 million people, the pandemic disrupted Roman trade to the east, affected societies culturally across Europe, and compelled physicians like Galen to study the symptoms in an effort to figure out not only what the disease was, but any potential cures. Of course, that was a tall task for ancient doctors with relatively primitive technology, and even today people continue to debate what the disease was and where it came from, with theories ranging from a smallpox outbreak in China, or possibly measles. The Antonine Plague: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Roman Empire's Worst Pandemic examines the origins of the disease, theories regarding what it was, and the toll it took. Along with pictures depicting important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Antonine Plauge like never before.
Download or read book The Diary of Samuel Pepys 1664 1665 written by Samuel Pepys and published by . This book was released on 1887 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Roman Empire and the Plague written by Charles River Editors and published by . This book was released on 2020-02-28 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes excerpts of ancient accounts *Includes a bibliography for further reading The era of the Five Good Emperors was one of unparalleled success and wealth, and the reasons Rome reached its zenith at this time are worthy of scrutiny. Perhaps most noteworthy is that none of these five emperors were blood relatives - while the final two are often referred to as the Antonines, they were not, in fact, related except by adoption, a practice that may in itself provide at least part of the answer to the question as to why this particular period was so magnificent. With all of that said, according to some academics, the success these rulers had in centralizing the empire's administration, while undoubtedly bringing huge benefits, also sowed the seeds for later problems. After all, as so many Roman emperors proved, from Caligula and Nero to Commodus, the empire's approach to governance was predicated on the ruler's ability. When incompetent or insane emperors came to power, the whole edifice came tumbling down. Moreover, the success of the emperors ironically brought about the worst plague in Rome's epic history. Due to constant warfare on the borders and attempts to defend positions against various groups, Roman soldiers came into contact with foreign diseases, and they unwittingly brought them home when campaigns ended. This culminated around 165 CE, when an unidentified disease brought the empire to its knees and afflicted an untold number of individuals, one of whom may have been Lucius Verus, the co-emperor of Rome alongside Marcus Aurelius. In addition to the enormous number of casualties, which has been estimated at upwards of 5 million people, the pandemic disrupted Roman trade to the east, affected societies culturally across Europe, and compelled physicians like Galen to study the symptoms in an effort to figure out not only what the disease was, but any potential cures. The Bubonic Plague was the worst affliction ever visited upon Europe and the Mediterranean world. Within a few short years, a quarter of the population was taken after a short but torturous illness. Those who escaped faced famine and economic hardship, crops were left unsown; harvests spoiled for lack of harvesters, and villages, towns, and great cities were depopulated. Markets were destroyed, and trade ground to a halt. It must have seemed like the end of the world to the terrified populace. The horror abated, only to return years later, often with less virulence but no less misery. Many who read a description of that plague might immediately think of the Black Death, the great epidemic that ravaged Europe and the Middle East from 1347-1351, but it actually refers to the lesser-known but arguably worse Plague of Justinian that descended upon the Mediterranean world in 541 and continued to decimate it over the next 200 years. The effects of the pestilence on history was every bit as dramatic as the one in the Late Middle Ages. In fact, the case could be made that the Plague of Justinian was a major factor in the molding of Europe and, consequently, the rest of the world as it is known today, marking a monumental crossroad between the ancient and medieval worlds. The Roman Empire and the Plague: The History of the Worst Pandemics to Strike Rome and the Byzantines in Antiquity and the Middle Ages charts the history of the diseases and how they shaped subsequent events, bringing down nations while inadvertently lifting others. It also describes the diseases' victims, and how certain segments of society may have avoided contracting it. Along with pictures depicting important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Roman Empire and the plague like never before.
Download or read book Pox Romana written by Colin Elliott and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2024-02-06 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A new account of the Antonine plague and its long-lasting effects on the history of the Roman empire"--
Download or read book Rome written by Matthew Kneale and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2019-05-28 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This magnificent love letter to Rome” (Stephen Greenblatt) tells the story of the Eternal City through pivotal moments that defined its history—from the early Roman Republic through the Renaissance and the Reformation to the German occupation in World War Two—“an erudite history that reads like a page-turner” (Maria Semple). Rome, the Eternal City. It is a hugely popular tourist destination with a rich history, famed for such sites as the Colosseum, the Forum, the Pantheon, St. Peter’s, and the Vatican. In no other city is history as present as it is in Rome. Today visitors can stand on bridges that Julius Caesar and Cicero crossed; walk around temples in the footsteps of emperors; visit churches from the earliest days of Christianity. This is all the more remarkable considering what the city has endured over the centuries. It has been ravaged by fires, floods, earthquakes, and—most of all—by roving armies. These have invaded repeatedly, from ancient times to as recently as 1943. Many times Romans have shrugged off catastrophe and remade their city anew. “Matthew Kneale [is] one step ahead of most other Roman chroniclers” (The New York Times Book Review). He paints portraits of the city before seven pivotal assaults, describing what it looked like, felt like, smelled like and how Romans, both rich and poor, lived their everyday lives. He shows how the attacks transformed Rome—sometimes for the better. With drama and humor he brings to life the city of Augustus, of Michelangelo and Bernini, of Garibaldi and Mussolini, and of popes both saintly and very worldly. Rome is “exciting…gripping…a slow roller-coaster ride through the fortunes of a place deeply entangled in its past” (The Wall Street Journal).
Download or read book The Diary of John Burchard of Strasburg Bishop of Orta and Civita Castellana written by Johann Burchard and published by . This book was released on 1910 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book 1665 Diary of a Plague Year written by Samuel Pepys and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2020-09-03 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Welcome to London in lockdown – in 1665 This timely release of a year in the life of London’s greatest diarist comes with an introduction by bestselling author, Max Hastings.
Download or read book Medieval Italy written by Katherine L. Jansen and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2011-09-21 with total page 620 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Medieval Italy gathers together an unparalleled selection of newly translated primary sources from the central and later Middle Ages, a period during which Italy was famous for its diverse cultural landscape of urban towers and fortified castles, the spirituality of Saints Francis and Clare, and the vernacular poetry of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. The texts highlight the continuities with the medieval Latin West while simultaneously emphasizing the ways in which Italy was exceptional, particularly for its cities that drove Mediterranean trade, its new communal forms of government, the impact of the papacy's temporal claims on the central peninsula, and the richly textured religious life of the mainland and its islands. A unique feature of this volume is its incorporation of the southern part of the peninsula and Sicily—the glittering Norman court at Palermo, the multicultural emporium of the south, and the kingdoms of Frederick II—into a larger narrative of Italian history. Including Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and Lombard sources, the documents speak in ethnically and religiously differentiated voices, while providing wider chronological and geographical coverage than previously available. Rich in interdisciplinary texts and organized to enable the reader to focus by specific region, topic, or period, this is a volume that will be an essential resource for anyone with a professional or private interest in the history, religion, literature, politics, and built environment of Italy from ca. 1000 to 1400.
Download or read book The Barbary Plague written by Marilyn Chase and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2004-03-09 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The veteran Wall Street Journal science reporter Marilyn Chase’s fascinating account of an outbreak of bubonic plague in late Victorian San Francisco is a real-life thriller that resonates in today’s headlines. The Barbary Plague transports us to the Gold Rush boomtown in 1900, at the end of the city’s Gilded Age. With a deep understanding of the effects on public health of politics, race, and geography, Chase shows how one city triumphed over perhaps the most frightening and deadly of all scourges.
Download or read book Justinian s Flea written by William Rosen and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the middle of the sixth century, the world's smallest organism collided with the world's mightiest empire. Twenty-five million corpses later, the Roman Empire, under her last great emperor, Justinian, was decimated. BeforeYersinia pestis,the bacterium that carries bubonic plague, was through, both the Roman and Persian empires were easy pickings for the armies of Muhammad on their conquering march out of Arabia. In its wake, the plague - history's first pandemic - marked the transition from the age of Mediterranean empires to the age of European nation-states - from antiquity to the medieval world. Justinian's Fleais the story of that collision, a narrative history that weaves together evolutionary microbiology, architecture, military history, geography, rat and flea ecology, jurisprudence, theology, epidemiology, and the economics of the silk trade. The climax ofJustinian's Flea- the summer of 542, when Constantinoplewitnessed the death of 5,000 of its citizens every day - is revealed through the experiences of the remarkable individuals whose lives are a window onto a remarkable age: Justinian himself, of course, but also hisdoppelgänger, the Persian Shah Khusro Anushirvan, whose empire would be so weakened by plague that it essentially vanished; his general Belisarius, the greatest soldier between Caesar and Saladin, whose conquests marked the end of imperial rule in Italy and Africa; his architect, Anthemius, the mathematician-engineer who built Constantinople's Hagia Sophia (and whose brother, Alexander, was the great physician of the plague years); Tribonian, the jurist who created the Justinianic Code, the source of Europe's tradition of Civil Law; and, finally, his empress Theodora, the one-time prostitute who became co-ruler of the empire, the most politically powerful woman in European history until Elizabeth I. Melding contemporary accounts with modern disciplines,Justinian's Fleais a unique account of one of history's great hinge moments.
Download or read book The Diary of Samuel Pepys written by Samuel Pepys and published by . This book was released on 2020-04-14 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Samuel Pepys gives a unique first hand account of life during the Great Plague of London and the Great Fire of London. Pepys stayed in London while many of the wealthy fled the city in the face of the plague. His careful observation and interest in the details of people's lives as well as the events of the time are unparalleled.
Download or read book Diary of a Black Jewish Messiah written by Alan Verskin and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2023-01-31 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1524, a man named David Reubeni appeared in Venice, claiming to be the ambassador of a powerful Jewish kingdom deep in the heart of Arabia. In this era of fierce rivalry between great powers, voyages of fantastic discovery, and brutal conquest of new lands, people throughout the Mediterranean saw the signs of an impending apocalypse and envisioned a coming war that would end with a decisive Christian or Islamic victory. With his army of hardy desert warriors from lost Israelite tribes, Reubeni pledged to deliver the Jews to the Holy Land by force and restore their pride and autonomy. He would spend a decade shuttling between European rulers in Italy, Portugal, Spain, and France, seeking weaponry in exchange for the support of his hitherto unknown but mighty Jewish kingdom. Many, however, believed him to favor the relatively tolerant Ottomans over the persecutorial Christian regimes. Reubeni was hailed as a messiah by many wealthy Jews and Iberia's oppressed conversos, but his grand ambitions were halted in Regensburg when the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, turned him over to the Inquisition and, in 1538, he was likely burned at the stake. Diary of a Black Jewish Messiah is the first English translation of Reubeni's Hebrew-language diary, detailing his travels and personal travails. Written in a Hebrew drawn from everyday speech, entirely unlike other literary works of the period, Reubeni's diary reveals both the dramatic desperation of Renaissance Jewish communities and the struggles of the diplomat, trickster, and dreamer who wanted to save them.
Download or read book The Black Death Diaries written by Blurb, Incorporated and published by . This book was released on 2015-06-22 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This is what death looks like..." It's 1348 and the plague has come to Stratford. In this collection of diary entries, you will meet a muscular soldier, a cruel priest and some helpless doctors. They will take you on a tragic journey through the untold stories of the plague...
Download or read book English Passengers written by Matthew Kneale and published by Anchor Canada. This book was released on 2011-02-11 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Narrated by over twenty distinct voices and full of dangerous humour, English Passengers combines wit, adventure and historical detail in a mesmerizing display of storytelling. When Captain Illiam Quillian Kewley and his band of smugglers have their contraband confiscated they are forced to put their ship, Sincerity, up for charter. The only takers are two Englishmen, the Reverend Geoffrey Wilson, who believes that the Garden of Eden was on the island of Tasmania, and Dr. Thomas Potter who is developing his sinister thesis concerning the races of man. Meanwhile an aboriginal in Tasmania, Peevay, recounts his people's struggles against the invading British. As the English passengers haplessly approach his land, their bizarre notions ever more painfully at odds with reality, we know a mighty collision is looming.
Download or read book The Diary of Heinrich Witt 10 vols written by Ulrich Muecke and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-02-02 with total page 7913 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The diary of Heinrich Witt (1799-1892) is the most extensive private diary written in Latin America known to us today. Written in English by a German migrant who lived in Lima, it is a unique source for the history of Peru, and for international trade and migration.
