In A History of Earliest Italy, first published in 1984, Professor Pallottino illumines the wide variety of peoples, languages, and traditions of culture and trade that constituted the pre-Roman Italic world. Since the written sources are fragmentary, archaeology provides the central reservoir for evidence of the societies and institutions of the varied peoples of early Italy. This incisive and immensely readable account unfolds from the Bronze Age to the unification of the Italian peninsula and Sicily by Rome following the flourishing Archaic period. It examines the relationships among the peoples of the peninsula and the influence of Mycenae and Greece in trade and colonisation. In telling the story of the early stages of the eternal dialogue between national vocation and local diversity in Italy, Professor Pallottino demonstrates that it is no less deserving of our attention than its contemporary Greek and later imperial Roman counterparts.

To Romans of later generations the three decades between the dictatorships of Sulla and of Caesar were the age of Pompey the Great. In spite of the central role he played in Roman history, he remains a shadowy figure compared with the likes of Caesar and Cicero. Pompey the Great, first published in 1978, traces the career of this enigmatic character from his first appearance in public life on the staff of his father Strabo during the Social War, through his early military campaigns as Sulla’s lieutenant in the Civil War 83-82, as the Senate’s general in Italy and Spain during the 70s, to his first consulship with Crassus in 70. The important commands against the pirates and Mithridates, the alliance with Caesar, its eventual collapse into civil war, and the significance of Pompey’s constitutional position for an understanding of the later Augustan settlement war are all discussed with clarity and insight.

The Roman province of Noricum occupied most of Austria as well as parts of Italy, Germany and the Balkans. Noricum, first published in 1974, presents a comprehensive history of Noricum, from 400 BC to the end of Roman rule in AD 600. Professor Alföldy’s account is predicated on the methodical interpretation of literary, epigraphic and archaeological sources, and emphasises the problems of demography and socio-economic history. The chapters are arranged chronologically, ensuring a sense of the continuity of historical events and illuminating the history and archaeology of Noricum both before it came into contact with the Romans as well as under Roman rule. Noricum includes a review of much recent research on the province, detailed references to the source material, a comprehensive bibliography and valuable appendices. It is a substantial work of ancient history and archaeology and will interest both the specialist and the general reader.

This title was first published in 2001. Militarism connotes more than unadulterated aggression. It encapsulates a way of life and involves the inculcation of military values as an end in itself. This text examines the factors which have been held to account for the rise of militarism in particular social contexts, using case studies and comparative analysis of this perennial phenomenon.

First published in 1910, this study in social evolution from the 13th to the 16th century functioned as a successor to Jacob Burckhardt’s The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy (1860). The author developed Burckhardt’s idea of studying continuous trends over time whilst challenging his idea that Early Modern women enjoyed extraordinary freedom in comparison to their Medieval predecessors. Boulting contrasts the idealization of women with real women at home and in life, portraying women as expanding from protective bondage due to economic progress alongside what contemporary scholars saw as the degeneration of the Catholic Faith during and following the Counter Reformation. He explores various roles of Renaissance women including maidens, married women, housewives, motherhood, widowhood, styles of dress, nuns, saints, courtesans and academics. In doing so, Boulting hoped to demonstrate how very substantial yet how wholly partial the emergence of women was during this Late Medieval and Early Modern period and that this coincided with the complete amelioration of humanity and an increase in kindliness and sense of duty among both men and women.