Customer Reviews

Constantine and Rome

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This books focuses on Rome at a crucial historical period for its development as a city, empire, and symbol of civilization. The author, who has spent nearly a lifetime engaged in these issues, provides much more than a synthesis of the often contentious and thorny scholarship. For the archaeological and art historical material, he gives standard interpretations their due but is not afraid of expressing ideas that may go against the grain of some contemporary trends. There is a breadth of scholarship here that is worn lightly and does not bog down the text. The book is important for its consideration of the so-called end of Rome and the beginnings of the Christian empire.

After checking all of Holloway's sources, at least the ones that are in English, it seems that he failed miserably in reflecting the vast amount of knowledge he surely gained on the subject matter. This book was written during Holloway's sabbatical in Rome. It reflects a sum of seemingly misguided information, and is anything but readable. I've never read a worse book on Constantine and Rome. The whole book is thrown together in four chapters and sort of reads like a tour guide pamphlet. This book was nothing but a disappointment, with Holloway's credentials, one must speculate whether those editors even read the book, considering it would be likely to take one look at his extended resume and other publications and just run it through the press. There is hardly an introduction, and definately not a conclusion. The fourth paragraph on St. Peter's is not only divergent from most scholarly opinion but noteably the most frusterating chapter to read. Holloway constantly contradicts his words from one sentence to the next, and from one paragraph to the next. It seems as though every sentence begins with an unidentified pronoun and the reader is expected to just read on not knowing what Holloway is going on about and find out later. Any Medieval Rome student probably knows as much as Holloway about the subject, and this book should not be approached from an academic level, or even for pleasure reading. I would give the first chapter some credibility. Maybe Holloway should look into writing historical fiction. He seems to come up with an occasional fictional ideas regarding his archeological research. He appears to be highly imaginative and learned Professor who failed to reflect his knowledge through writing. It is quite a dissapointment that someone with such high praise from the archeological society would take a publication this late in his career so lightly.