Download or read book SPQR A History of Ancient Rome written by Mary Beard and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2015-11-09 with total page 743 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller A New York Times Notable Book Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Foreign Affairs, and Kirkus Reviews Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award (Nonfiction) Shortlisted for the Cundill Prize in Historical Literature Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (History) A San Francisco Chronicle Holiday Gift Guide Selection A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice Selection A sweeping, "magisterial" history of the Roman Empire from one of our foremost classicists shows why Rome remains "relevant to people many centuries later" (Atlantic). In SPQR, an instant classic, Mary Beard narrates the history of Rome "with passion and without technical jargon" and demonstrates how "a slightly shabby Iron Age village" rose to become the "undisputed hegemon of the Mediterranean" (Wall Street Journal). Hailed by critics as animating "the grand sweep and the intimate details that bring the distant past vividly to life" (Economist) in a way that makes "your hair stand on end" (Christian Science Monitor) and spanning nearly a thousand years of history, this "highly informative, highly readable" (Dallas Morning News) work examines not just how we think of ancient Rome but challenges the comfortable historical perspectives that have existed for centuries. With its nuanced attention to class, democratic struggles, and the lives of entire groups of people omitted from the historical narrative for centuries, SPQR will to shape our view of Roman history for decades to come.
Download or read book SPQR written by Mary Beard and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2015-10-20 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mary Beard's new book Emperor of Rome is available now Ancient Rome matters. Its history of empire, conquest, cruelty and excess is something against which we still judge ourselves. Its myths and stories - from Romulus and Remus to the Rape of Lucretia - still strike a chord with us. And its debates about citizenship, security and the rights of the individual still influence our own debates on civil liberty today. SPQR is a new look at Roman history from one of the world's foremost classicists. It explores not only how Rome grew from an insignificant village in central Italy to a power that controlled territory from Spain to Syria, but also how the Romans thought about themselves and their achievements, and why they are still important to us. Covering 1,000 years of history, and casting fresh light on the basics of Roman culture from slavery to running water, as well as exploring democracy, migration, religious controversy, social mobility and exploitation in the larger context of the empire, this is a definitive history of ancient Rome. SPQR is the Romans' own abbreviation for their state: Senatus Populusque Romanus, 'the Senate and People of Rome'.
Download or read book Summary and Analysis of SPQR A History of Ancient Rome written by Worth Books and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2017-02-07 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: So much to read, so little time? This brief overview of SPQR tells you what you need to know—before or after you read Mary Beard’s book. Crafted and edited with care, Worth Books set the standard for quality and give you the tools you need to be a well-informed reader. This short summary and analysis of SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard includes: Historical context Chapter-by-chapter summaries Detailed timeline of key events Profiles of the main characters Important quotes Fascinating trivia Glossary of terms Supporting material to enhance your understanding of the original work About SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard: A sweeping history of the ancient capital of Italy, SPQR contains all of the excitement of Roman conquest and a fascinating view of everyday life in the days of Cicero, Mark Antony, and Julius Caesar. Renowned historian Mary Beard narrates the major battles, the betrayals, assassinations, and revolts, the remarkable reign of Augustus, and the delicate balance of maintaining peaceful relations across far-flung provinces. With brilliant analysis and vivid historical detail, SPQR was a New York Times bestseller and a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist. The summary and analysis in this ebook are intended to complement your reading experience and bring you closer to a great work of nonfiction.
Download or read book Spqr written by Summary Reads and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2015-11-27 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: SPQR: A HISTORY OF ANCIENT ROME - SUMMARY & HIGHLIGHTS PLEASE NOTE: This is a summary and analysis of the book and NOT the original book. SPQR: A HISTORY OF ANCIENT ROME masterfully tells the story of Rome from its inception as a small Italian village to the sprawling empire ruled by the fourteen emperors. From the humble, if not treacherous, beginnings of Romulus to the fall of the Republic with Julius Caesar SPQR goes behind the scenes of the greatest imperial power the ancient world had ever seen. Rome was a land built on mythical battles taking place in Italy until one leader took the idea of expansion and annexation to another level. As Sicily falls into the hands of the Romans all the way to the fall of Britain, Beard walks the reader through the progression of Roman rule. PLEASE NOTE: This is a summary and analysis of the book and NOT the original book.
Download or read book The Fires of Vesuvius written by Mary Beard and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-30 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pompeii is the most famous archaeological site in the world, visited by more than two million people each year. Yet it is also one of the most puzzling, with an intriguing and sometimes violent history, from the sixth century BCE to the present day. Destroyed by Vesuvius in 79 CE, the ruins of Pompeii offer the best evidence we have of life in the Roman Empire. But the eruptions are only part of the story. In The Fires of Vesuvius, acclaimed historian Mary Beard makes sense of the remains. She explores what kind of town it was—more like Calcutta or the Costa del Sol?—and what it can tell us about “ordinary” life there. From sex to politics, food to religion, slavery to literacy, Beard offers us the big picture even as she takes us close enough to the past to smell the bad breath and see the intestinal tapeworms of the inhabitants of the lost city. She resurrects the Temple of Isis as a testament to ancient multiculturalism. At the Suburban Baths we go from communal bathing to hygiene to erotica. Recently, Pompeii has been a focus of pleasure and loss: from Pink Floyd’s memorable rock concert to Primo Levi’s elegy on the victims. But Pompeii still does not give up its secrets quite as easily as it may seem. This book shows us how much more and less there is to Pompeii than a city frozen in time as it went about its business on 24 August 79.
Download or read book Invisible Romans written by Robert Knapp and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011-10-24 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What survives from the Roman Empire is largely the words and lives of the rich and powerful: emperors, philosophers, senators. Yet the privilege and decadence often associated with the Roman elite was underpinned by the toils and tribulations of the common citizens. Here, the eminent historian Robert Knapp brings those invisible inhabitants of Rome and its vast empire to light. He seeks out the ordinary folk—laboring men, housewives, prostitutes, freedmen, slaves, soldiers, and gladiators—who formed the backbone of the ancient Roman world, and the outlaws and pirates who lay beyond it. He finds their traces in the nooks and crannies of the histories, treatises, plays, and poetry created by the elite. Everyday people come alive through original sources as varied as graffiti, incantations, magical texts, proverbs, fables, astrological writings, and even the New Testament. Knapp offers a glimpse into a world far removed from our own, but one that resonates through history. Invisible Romans allows us to see how Romans sought on a daily basis to survive and thrive under the afflictions of disease, war, and violence, and to control their fates before powers that variously oppressed and ignored them.
Download or read book Twelve Caesars written by Mary Beard and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-10-12 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of how images of Roman autocrats have influenced art, culture, and the representation of power for more than 2,000 years. What does the face of power look like? Who gets commemorated in art and why? And how do we react to statues of politicians we deplore?
Download or read book The Roman Triumph written by Mary Beard and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-05-31 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It followed every major military victory in ancient Rome: the successful general drove through the streets to the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill; behind him streamed his raucous soldiers; in front were his most glamorous prisoners, as well as the booty he’d captured, from enemy ships and precious statues to plants and animals from the conquered territory. Occasionally there was so much on display that the show lasted two or three days. A radical reexamination of this most extraordinary of ancient ceremonies, this book explores the magnificence of the Roman triumph, but also its darker side. What did it mean when the axle broke under Julius Caesar’s chariot? Or when Pompey’s elephants got stuck trying to squeeze through an arch? Or when exotic or pathetic prisoners stole the general’s show? And what are the implications of the Roman triumph, as a celebration of imperialism and military might, for questions about military power and “victory” in our own day? The triumph, Mary Beard contends, prompted the Romans to question as well as celebrate military glory. Her richly illustrated work is a testament to the profound importance of the triumph in Roman culture—and for monarchs, dynasts and generals ever since. But how can we re-create the ceremony as it was celebrated in Rome? How can we piece together its elusive traces in art and literature? Beard addresses these questions, opening a window on the intriguing process of sifting through and making sense of what constitutes “history.”
Download or read book Dynasty written by Tom Holland and published by Little, Brown Book Group. This book was released on 2015-09-03 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A masterly account of this first wicked century of the Roman Empire' Sunday Times 'Holland does not just tell the story of the reign of the Julio-Claudian family. He knits the history of ancient Rome into his narrative - its founding myths, the fall of the republic, the religious superstitions - with a skill so dextrous you don't notice the stitching. Dynasty is both a formidable effort to compile what we can know about the ancient world and a sensational story' Observer 'A witty and skilful storyteller... He recounts with pleasure his racy tales of psychopathic cruelty, incest, paedophilia, matricide, fratricide, assassination and depravity' William Dalrymple, New Statesman 'A wonderful, surging narrative... [for] anyone interested in history, politics or human nature - and it has never been better told' Mail on Sunday THE TOP TEN SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
Download or read book A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome written by Alberto Angela and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This voyage of exploration chronicles twenty-four hours in the life of a Roman patrician, beginning at dawn on an ordinary day in the year 115 A.D., with Imperial Rome at the height of its power.
Download or read book SPQR written by Instaread and published by Instaread. This book was released on 2016-02-04 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: SPQR by Mary Beard | Summary & Analysis Preview: SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard is a single-volume history of Ancient Rome. The book covers Roman history from its semi-mythical origins in roughly 753 BC, to the decision by the Emperor Caracalla in 212 CE to make all free adult males born within the empire Roman citizens… PLEASE NOTE: This is key takeaways and analysis of the book and NOT the original book. Inside this Instaread Summary of SPQR: · Overview of the book · Important People · Key Takeaways · Analysis of Key Takeaways
Download or read book Women Power written by Mary Beard and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2017-11-02 with total page 87 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An updated edition of the Sunday Times Bestseller Britain's best-known classicist Mary Beard, is also a committed and vocal feminist. With wry wit, she revisits the gender agenda and shows how history has treated powerful women. Her examples range from the classical world to the modern day, from Medusa and Athena to Theresa May and Hillary Clinton. Beard explores the cultural underpinnings of misogyny, considering the public voice of women, our cultural assumptions about women's relationship with power, and how powerful women resist being packaged into a male template. A year on since the advent of #metoo, Beard looks at how the discussions have moved on during this time, and how that intersects with issues of rape and consent, and the stories men tell themselves to support their actions. In trademark Beardian style, using examples ancient and modern, Beard argues, 'it's time for change - and now!' From the author of international bestseller SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome.
Download or read book Rome in the Late Republic written by Mary Beard and published by Bloomsbury Academic. This book was released on 1985 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This well-established textbook outlines the factors that every student must assess for a proper understanding of the late Republic, from the attitudes of the aristocracy and the role of state religion to the function of political institutions."--[P. 4], Cover.
Download or read book Mary Beard s SPQR written by Ant Hive Media and published by . This book was released on 2016-03-24 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a summary of Mary Beard's SPQR: A History of Ancient RomeThis is Roman history roughly from its mythological dawning about 753 BC to the time when free adult males within the Roman Empire were declared by Emperor Caracalla as citizens of Rome in 212 CE.Beard starts the history of ancient Rome with an account of how Lucius Sergius Catalina (Cataline) conspired against Rome and how it was foiled by the Senate. The book uses the conspiracy as a springboard to discuss various aspects of Roman civilization including, citizenship, its military as well as Rome's perceptions of social structures such as slavery and religion including the position of women in society. Historical figures that greatly influenced the development of the empire are also discussed.The book proposes that the rise of the Roman Empire from a small settlement near the Tiber to the most powerful empire in ancient history was due to Rome's receptiveness to try new ideas. Likewise Beard believes that Roman civilization is still very relevant to our modern times, particularly, on current day discourses on freedom and the protection of the state."SPQR" is the abbreviated form of Senatus Populusque Romanos meaning "the Senate and the People of Rome" which is ubiquitously etched in most Roman manuscripts, even objects and structures.Available in a variety of formats, this summary is aimed for those who want to capture the gist of the book but don't have the current time to devour all 608 pages. You get the main summary along with all of the benefits and lessons the actual book has to offer. This summary is not intended to be used without reference to the original book.
Download or read book Rome written by Greg Woolf and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major new history of the spectacular rise and fall of the ancient world's greatest empire
Download or read book Mortal Republic written by Edward J. Watts and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2018-11-06 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Learn why the Roman Republic collapsed -- and how it could have continued to thrive -- with this insightful history from an award-winning author. In Mortal Republic, prize-winning historian Edward J. Watts offers a new history of the fall of the Roman Republic that explains why Rome exchanged freedom for autocracy. For centuries, even as Rome grew into the Mediterranean's premier military and political power, its governing institutions, parliamentary rules, and political customs successfully fostered negotiation and compromise. By the 130s BC, however, Rome's leaders increasingly used these same tools to cynically pursue individual gain and obstruct their opponents. As the center decayed and dysfunction grew, arguments between politicians gave way to political violence in the streets. The stage was set for destructive civil wars -- and ultimately the imperial reign of Augustus. The death of Rome's Republic was not inevitable. In Mortal Republic, Watts shows it died because it was allowed to, from thousands of small wounds inflicted by Romans who assumed that it would last forever.
Download or read book Laughter in Ancient Rome written by Mary Beard and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2024-03-05 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What made the Romans laugh? Was ancient Rome a carnival, filled with practical jokes and hearty chuckles? Or was it a carefully regulated culture in which the uncontrollable excess of laughter was a force to fear—a world of wit, irony, and knowing smiles? How did Romans make sense of laughter? What role did it play in the world of the law courts, the imperial palace, or the spectacles of the arena? Laughter in Ancient Rome explores one of the most intriguing, but also trickiest, of historical subjects. Drawing on a wide range of Roman writing—from essays on rhetoric to a surviving Roman joke book—Mary Beard tracks down the giggles, smirks, and guffaws of the ancient Romans themselves. From ancient “monkey business” to the role of a chuckle in a culture of tyranny, she explores Roman humor from the hilarious, to the momentous, to the surprising. But she also reflects on even bigger historical questions. What kind of history of laughter can we possibly tell? Can we ever really “get” the Romans’ jokes?
