4 ms·

I'd also recommend Mary Beard's book SPQR [1]. [1]https://www.amazon.com/SPQR-History-Ancient-Mary-Beard/dp/1631492225 https://www.amazon.com/SPQR-History-Anci

• billfruit 5y ago
  I'd recommend Gibbon, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire".
  • ch4s3 5y ago
    I’ve skimmed some of it. I was under the impression that Gibbon’s decline narrative isn’t very well regarded among scholars today, but I don’t know enough to make any judgment there.
    • Ericson2314 5y ago
      Per part 1: > While I am going at points to gesture to Gibbon’s thinking, we’re not going to debate him; he is the ‘old man’ of our title. Gibbon himself largely exists only in historiographical footnotes and intellectual histories; he is not at this point seriously defended nor seriously attacked but discussed as the venerable, but now out of date, origin point for all of this bickering. Holding it in ill-regard would be punching down. It's an 18th work! If it were at all up to date, that would indicate serious stagnation in the academy. Of course, there has been a great amassing of new evidence since then, especially non-textual.
      • Ericson2314 5y ago
        If you want more intellectual history, I recommend "The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire" by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Rostovtzeff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Rostovtzeff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominate == USSR, basically. It's too editorialized to stand as a modern historical text, but it's great fun to read nonetheless!
      • aestetix 5y ago
        I'm starting book 3 right now. Due to being written over 200 years ago his work might be out of date, but is there anything he got wrong? I could see scholars having issues with some of his opinions, but as far as I am aware, his factual history stands.
• ch4s3 5y ago
  Seems some folks don’t like Beard’s book, which is surprising to me. I’d love to hear why.
  • prewett 5y ago
    I found it tiring that she consistently dismisses the ancient sources as wrong without giving an reason why. Academics have been saying "well this <commonly believed thing from antiquity> can't possibly be true", and it not infrequently turns out to be at least not wrong. Sure, sources in antiquity are unreliable, but they are at least two millennia closer to the actual events than we are. The book also seemed like a survey that had chunks missing out of the map. The parts that were there were well done (excepting not giving any good reason for distrusting the ancient sources) and I definitely learned things. But I don't feel like I got a good feeling of the course of Roman history, more like little vignettes along the way. I can't say I dislike the book, but I think it could be better. (Although, I'm a complete novice in Roman history, so that might influence my opinion. And maybe the book wasn't written for me, too.)
    • ch4s3 5y ago
      I read it a few years ago after listening to the Duncan podcast and reading a bunch of archeology papers. I'm definitely no classicist, and don't read Latin but have a passing interest in the history. I think some of here dismissals are well founded and other experts agree. I think the weakness of the book is that it leans heavily on pronouncement of unknowability. But I really like that she treats the reader like a smart person and presents conflicting and complicated information as is, and lets you mull it over. It isn't a perfect book, but it's very readable, informative, and seems to be well regarded. I was on a Rome kick at the time and didn't find anything that seemed to be completely out of left field.
    • pasabagi 5y ago
      Perhaps it's a reaction to the normal bias? I'm constantly surprised by how people will take extremely partial accounts from somebody on one side of an issue and no real expressed or implicit commitment to accuracy at face value. [0]: e.g. Thucydides' History of the Pelopenesian war might be accurate, but honestly, why would it be? It's even worse when you have stuff like Caesar's writings.