Customer Reviews

A History of the Roman Republic

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I am not well versed in ancient history but the "Rome" HBO series interested me to the point I wanted to learn the real story. As a novice enthusiast, I could have picked an easier introduction but after struggling with the first 50 pages or so, I found my footing and really enjoyed this informative and well written book. More maps would have been helpful for this rookie. This book is not an easy read but well worth investing time in and has inspired me to want to learn more.

First of all this book gives a great overview of the Roman Republic and is very interesting and I recommend it. However there are two problems. The first problem is that there are not enough maps. This author expects you to know where everything in ancient Italy and Ancient off the top of your head. I recommend having a map of this of the internet for a reference. The second problem is the authors writing style. He will mention an event without giving the background. While talking about the event he will find a segue to the back story and go with that for three or four pages until he goes back to the event. This makes the book a little hard to read especially when you are tired but you get used to it. Even with these two faults the book is fascinating and goes through the history and complex characters and situations.

This text should not be used as a textbook. As a graduate student in a class with undergraduates and graduate students, the text fails to provide multiple opinions of modern debate over popular topics, which would be helpful to graduate students, and is not written in a logical or coherent manner with any helpful organization or diagrams, as needed for undergraduates. Worst of all, the fact that it is translated from its original German makes the entire process of reading choppy, confusing, and frustrating as I found myself struggling to grasp concepts that other texts have made much clearer. I recommend Cornell's Beginnings of Rome instead. Cornell's book is a great textbook-style source.