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 R...

The incomparable Mary Beard is back, and she’s talking all things classics.Why the ongoing fascination with the ancient world? This witty, approachable book asks why—for better or (sometimes) worse—antiquity continues to exert such a powerful hold on the contemporary imagination. Recalling a formative childhood encounter with a four-thousand-year-old piece of bread in a museum, Beard introduces the idea of thauma, or wonder, that kick-started a lifetime en...

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER'EastEnders for the 1st century AD... Beard's enthusiastic sense of wonder remains undimmed' THE TIMES'The rock star scholar of Ancient Rome' FINANCIAL TIMES'The reigning Queen of Classics' SPECTATORWhat's exciting about a piece of bread 4,000 years old? Or some pots of paint abandoned in the eruption at Pompeii?...

An updated edition of the Sunday Times BestsellerBritain'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 ...

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 ...

A WATERSTONES BEST POLITICS BOOK OF 2024This is an exceptional moment for democracy.In the year of elections, read Margaret Atwood, Mary Beard, Lea Ypi, Elif Shafak and more on what democracy means - and why it matters.In 2024, nearly half the world will take part in a national election, with billions heading to the polls. It's a thrilling, unprecedented opportunity for change - yet democracy is also under ...

This book offers a radical new survey of more than a thousand years of religious life at Rome. It sets religion in its full cultural context, between the primitive hamlet of the eighth century BC and the cosmopolitan, multicultural society of the first centuries of the Christian era. The narrative account is structured around a series of broad themes: how to interpret the Romans' own theories of their religious system and its origins; the relationship of religion and the changing politics ...

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN & NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERBLACKWELL'S NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEARSHORTLISTED FOR THE WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023'Extraordinary ... a deliciously varied tapestry of detail drawn from across nearly three centuries' TelegraphWhat was it really like to rule and be ruled in the Ancient Roman world?...

'The reigning Queen of Classics' Spectator'Mary Beard is the best in the business' Dan Snow'Excellent' Guardian**'Enthralling' Sunday TimesBritain's most famous classicist asks: what are civilisations?**Central to this huge question are the ways in which we have depicted the human and the divine from prehistory to the present day. And across such iconic creations as Angkor ...

Volume two reveals the extraordinary diversity of ancient Roman religion. A comprehensive sourcebook, it presents a wide range of documents illustrating religious life in the Roman world - from the foundations of the city in the eighth century BC to the Christian capital more than a thousand years later. Each document is given a full introduction, explanatory notes and bibliography, and acts as a starting point for further discussion. Through paintings, sculptures, coins and inscriptions, ...

The Victorians, perhaps more than any Britons before them, were diggers and sifters of the past. Though they were not the first to be fascinated by history, the intensity and range of their preoccupations with the past were unprecedented and of lasting importance. The Victorians paved the way for our modern disciplines, discovered the primeval monsters we now call the dinosaurs, and built many of Britain’s most important national museums and galleries. To a large degree, they created the p...

WINNER OF THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE 2008'The world's most controversial classicist debunks our movie-style myths about the Roman town with meticulous scholarship and propulsive energy' Laura Silverman, Daily MailThe ruins of Pompeii, buried by an explosion of Vesuvius in 79 CE, offer the best evidence we have of everyday life in the Roman empire. This remarkable book rises to the challenge of making sense of those remains, as well as exploding many...