The New Roman Empire

Author : James J O'Donnell
Publisher : Profile Books
ISBN 13 : 1847653960
Total Pages : 768 pages
Book Rating : 4.63/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Ruin of the Roman Empire written by James J O'Donnell and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2011-05-26 with total page 768 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What really marked the end of the Roman Empire? James O'Donnell's magnificent new book takes us back to the sixth century and the last time the Empire could be regarded as a single community. Two figures dominate his narrative - Theodoric the 'barbarian', whose civilized rule in Italy with his philosopher minister Boethius might have been an inspiration, and in Constantinople Justinian, who destroyed the Empire with his rigid passion for orthodoxy and his restless inability to secure his frontiers with peace. The book closes with Pope Gregory the Great, the polished product of ancient Roman schools, presiding over a Rome in ruins.

Author : Vaclav Smil
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 026228829X
Total Pages : 239 pages
Book Rating : 4.93/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Why America Is Not a New Rome written by Vaclav Smil and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2010-01-29 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An investigation of the America-Rome analogy that goes deeper than the facile comparisons made on talk shows and in glossy magazine articles. America's post–Cold War strategic dominance and its pre-recession affluence inspired pundits to make celebratory comparisons to ancient Rome at its most powerful. Now, with America no longer perceived as invulnerable, engaged in protracted fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and suffering the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, comparisons are to the bloated, decadent, ineffectual later Empire. In Why America Is Not a New Rome, Vaclav Smil looks at these comparisons in detail, going deeper than the facile analogy-making of talk shows and glossy magazine articles. He finds profound differences. Smil, a scientist and a lifelong student of Roman history, focuses on several fundamental concerns: the very meaning of empire; the actual extent and nature of Roman and American power; the role of knowledge and innovation; and demographic and economic basics—population dynamics, illness, death, wealth, and misery. America is not a latter-day Rome, Smil finds, and we need to understand this in order to look ahead without the burden of counterproductive analogies. Superficial similarities do not imply long-term political, demographic, or economic outcomes identical to Rome's.

Author : Anthony Kaldellis
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0197549322
Total Pages : 1169 pages
Book Rating : 4.22/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The New Roman Empire written by Anthony Kaldellis and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024 with total page 1169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This is the first comprehensive, single-author history of the eastern Roman empire (or Byzantium) to appear in over a generation. It begins with the foundation of Constantinople in 324 AD and ends with the fall of the empire to the Ottoman Turks in the fifteenth century, covering political and military history as well as all major changes in religion, society, demography, and economy. In recent decades, the study of Byzantium has been revolutionized by new approaches and sophisticated models for how its society and state operated. The book's core is an accessible and lively narrative of events, free of jargon, which incorporates new findings, explains recent models, and presents well-known historical characters and events in new light. Two overarching themes shape the narrative. First, by projecting accountability the Roman state persuaded its subjects that it was working in their interests and thereby forestalled separatist movements. To do so, it had to restrain the tendency of elites to extract ever more resources from the labor-force. Second, the effort to sustain a common identity, both Roman and Christian, was subject to powerful forces of internal division and put under severe strain by western Europeans in the later Middle Ages. The book explains in detail the alternating periods of success and failure in the long history of this polity. It foregrounds the dynamics of Christian identity, asking why it tended to fracture along lines of doctrine, practice, and ultimately over Union with the Catholic West"--

Author : Mary Beard
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 1631491253
Total Pages : 743 pages
Book Rating : 4.52/5 ( download)

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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.

Author : Cyril A. Mango
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781898800446
Total Pages : 334 pages
Book Rating : 4.48/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Byzantium written by Cyril A. Mango and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Anthony Kaldellis
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674365402
Total Pages : 309 pages
Book Rating : 4.07/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Byzantine Republic written by Anthony Kaldellis and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2015-02-02 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although Byzantium is known to history as the Eastern Roman Empire, scholars have long claimed that this Greek Christian theocracy bore little resemblance to Rome. Here, in a revolutionary model of Byzantine politics and society, Anthony Kaldellis reconnects Byzantium to its Roman roots, arguing that from the fifth to the twelfth centuries CE the Eastern Roman Empire was essentially a republic, with power exercised on behalf of the people and sometimes by them too. The Byzantine Republic recovers for the historical record a less autocratic, more populist Byzantium whose Greek-speaking citizens considered themselves as fully Roman as their Latin-speaking “ancestors.” Kaldellis shows that the idea of Byzantium as a rigid imperial theocracy is a misleading construct of Western historians since the Enlightenment. With court proclamations often draped in Christian rhetoric, the notion of divine kingship emerged as a way to disguise the inherent vulnerability of each regime. The legitimacy of the emperors was not predicated on an absolute right to the throne but on the popularity of individual emperors, whose grip on power was tenuous despite the stability of the imperial institution itself. Kaldellis examines the overlooked Byzantine concept of the polity, along with the complex relationship of emperors to the law and the ways they bolstered their popular acceptance and avoided challenges. The rebellions that periodically rocked the empire were not aberrations, he shows, but an essential part of the functioning of the republican monarchy.

Author : Cullen Murphy
Publisher : HMH
ISBN 13 : 0547527071
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.79/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Are We Rome? written by Cullen Murphy and published by HMH. This book was released on 2008-05-05 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What went wrong in imperial Rome, and how we can avoid it: “If you want to understand where America stands in the world today, read this.” —Thomas E. Ricks The rise and fall of ancient Rome has been on American minds since the beginning of our republic. Depending on who’s doing the talking, the history of Rome serves as either a triumphal call to action—or a dire warning of imminent collapse. In this “provocative and lively” book, Cullen Murphy points out that today we focus less on the Roman Republic than on the empire that took its place, and reveals a wide array of similarities between the two societies (The New York Times). Looking at the blinkered, insular culture of our capitals; the debilitating effect of bribery in public life; the paradoxical issue of borders; and the weakening of the body politic through various forms of privatization, Murphy persuasively argues that we most resemble Rome in the burgeoning corruption of our government and in our arrogant ignorance of the world outside—two things that must be changed if we are to avoid Rome’s fate. “Are We Rome? is just about a perfect book. . . . I wish every politician would spend an evening with this book.” —James Fallows

Author : Ramsay MacMullen
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691656665
Total Pages : 413 pages
Book Rating : 4.63/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Changes in the Roman Empire written by Ramsay MacMullen and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-19 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by one of the foremost historians of the Roman Empire, this collection of both new and previously published essays forms a colorful picture of daily life in the Mediterranean world between A.D. 50 and 450. Here, for example, the author applies statistical analysis to broad groups of people on matters ranging from justice through medicine to language. In so doing he is able to substantiate general statements about routines in ordinary people's behavior and to detect within these routines the very changes that constitute history. Such analysis also shows how this era benefits from the same historiographical approaches that have so successfully elucidated sociocultural phenomena in other periods. Drawing from statistical analysis and many other historical approaches, these essays on popular mores in the Roman Empire cover such topics as language and art, acculturation, thought and religion, sex and gender, cruelty and slavery, and aspects of class and power relations. The author introduces the collection with several essays on historical method, as it pertains to the richness of documentation and variety to be found in the region and period chosen. Ramsay MacMullen is Dunham Professor of History and Classics at Yale University. The most recent of his many books include Corruption and the Decline of Rome and Christianizing the Roman Empire: A.D. 100-400, both published by Yale. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Author : Paul Veyne
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674777712
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.19/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Roman Empire written by Paul Veyne and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This compact book--which appeared earlier in the multivolume series A History of Private Life--is a history of the Roman Empire in pagan times. It is an interpretation setting forth in detail the universal civilization of the Romans--so much of it Hellenic--that later gave way to Christianity. The civilization, culture, literature, art, and even religion of Rome are discussed in this masterly work by a leading scholar.

Author : Colin Michael Wells
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674777705
Total Pages : 396 pages
Book Rating : 4.00/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Roman Empire written by Colin Michael Wells and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This sweeping history of the Roman Empire from 44 BC to AD 235 has three purposes: to describe what was happening in the central administration and in the entourage of the emperor; to indicate how life went on in Italy and the provinces, in the towns, in the countryside, and in the army camps; and to show how these two different worlds impinged on each other. Colin Wells's vivid account is now available in an up-to-date second edition.