Books

We know the big names - Cicero, Diodorus, Caesar, Livy - but we forget how periods in Rome's history were recorded by multiple people, mostly at the same time. Many times history books were a not just a narrative but a composed book of first-hand...

J. E. Lendon in his book, Soldiers and Ghosts: A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity, uses Greek and Roman culture to explain fundamental changes in the conduct of war. Lendon persuasively argues that competition and an obsession with...

Patricia Southern's writing breathes wit and entertainment into her treatment of Hadrian's Wall. Hadrian's Wall: Everyday Life on a Roman Frontier could easily have been yet another dry interpretation of the archaeological and historical...

Ancient Assyria: A Very Short Introduction provides an incredibly succinct and valuable introduction to ancient Assyria. At 112 pages of readable content, it is easily accessible to the general public, with not too many technical terms or...

Blood of the Celts: The New Ancestry Story, by Jean Manco, a building historian and the author of Ancestral Journeys: The Peopling of Europe from the First Ventures to the Vikings, traces the complex story of the Celtic peoples through history...

Patrick Geary is alarmed by the rapid progression of nationalist movements in Europe and the popular support such movements receive. Historians bear the brunt of his displeasure because they are responsible, in his mind, for the re-emergence...

In the 1830s, a French farmer in Normandy uncovered a hoard of ancient Roman objects – primarily cast in silver, weighing 55 pounds (25 kilograms). The Berthouville Silver Treasure and Roman Luxury, which accompanies the Getty Museum's...

Published on the occasion of the opening of the exhibition of "Philippine Gold: Treasures of Forgotten Kingdoms", organized by the Asia Society, New York and the Ayala Museum in the Philippines in 2015, this eponymous exhibition...

Daily Life in Traditional China: The Tang Dynasty by Charles Benn is an excellent resource as well as very entertaining reading. Charles Benn's writing style is very easy and accessible and makes for a really enjoyable experience. I think...