In his 1992 book Campagna Romana. The Countryside of Ancient Rome Joel Sternfeld focused on the ruins of grand structures with a clear warning: great civilizations fall, ours may too. Now in Rome after Rome, containing images from the previous book as well as numerous unpublished pictures, Sternfeld's questions multiply: who are these modern Romans? What is their relationship to the splendor that was? What is the nature of sullied modernity in relation to the Arcadian ideal? Is there, at this late moment, any chance for Utopia? The Campagna, the countryside south and east of Rome occupies a special place in Roman--and human history. With the rise of Ancient Rome, this once polluted, malarial landscape was restored by emperors and thrived with some 20 towns and numerous wealthy villas on the rolling plains among the mighty aqueducts that fed water to Rome. After the city fell, the Campagna once again became desolate and dangerous. The gloomy tombs, broken homes and aqueducts sat in a kind of no man's land for over 1,000 years. To this landscape came the painters: Dürer, Lorrain, Poussin, and later, Corot, Turner, and Americans such as Thomas Cole. In the ruins they sought the origins of Rome's greatness and the meaning of her fall. Later they depicted a place where Roman gods cavorted and mankind lived in a golden age, an Arcadia. Central Rome was rebuilt with Baroque apartments hiding the past: in the Campagna the past was visible and all imaginings possible. Sternfeld juxtaposes the ruins of a powerful, ancient civilization with the new construction and the debris of our own time. Avoiding obvious contrasts, eschewing heavy-handed irony, this contemporary artist draws our attention to both despoliation and lasting beauty; he suggests many reasons for despair, yet he also has something to say about the nobility of the human spirit. Theodore E. Stebbins Jr.

Anarchy rules in Britannia as the Roman Empire collapses, and two men fight to build stable lives among the chaos.

A major new history of the spectacular rise and fall of the ancient world's greatest empire

New York Times Bestseller A New York Times Notable Book Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Foreign Affairs, and Kirkus Reviews Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award (Nonfiction) Shortlisted for the Cundill Prize in Historical Literature Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (History) A San Francisco Chronicle Holiday Gift Guide Selection A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice Selection A sweeping, "magisterial" history of the Roman Empire from one of our foremost classicists shows why Rome remains "relevant to people many centuries later" (Atlantic). In SPQR, an instant classic, Mary Beard narrates the history of Rome "with passion and without technical jargon" and demonstrates how "a slightly shabby Iron Age village" rose to become the "undisputed hegemon of the Mediterranean" (Wall Street Journal). Hailed by critics as animating "the grand sweep and the intimate details that bring the distant past vividly to life" (Economist) in a way that makes "your hair stand on end" (Christian Science Monitor) and spanning nearly a thousand years of history, this "highly informative, highly readable" (Dallas Morning News) work examines not just how we think of ancient Rome but challenges the comfortable historical perspectives that have existed for centuries. With its nuanced attention to class, democratic struggles, and the lives of entire groups of people omitted from the historical narrative for centuries, SPQR will to shape our view of Roman history for decades to come.

The author discusses how the Roman Empire--an empire without a serious rival--rotted from within, its rulers and institutions putting short-term ambition and personal survival over the wider good of the state.

This collection of essays deals with a broad range of issues within the study, past and present, of the early Middle Ages. Subjects include war, power, ethnicity, gender, Charlemagne and Carolingian history. The book is largely concerned with reading the sources, both medieval and modern, and interpreting their narrators.

Learn why the Roman Republic collapsed -- and how it could have continued to thrive -- with this insightful history from an award-winning author. In Mortal Republic, prize-winning historian Edward J. Watts offers a new history of the fall of the Roman Republic that explains why Rome exchanged freedom for autocracy. For centuries, even as Rome grew into the Mediterranean's premier military and political power, its governing institutions, parliamentary rules, and political customs successfully fostered negotiation and compromise. By the 130s BC, however, Rome's leaders increasingly used these same tools to cynically pursue individual gain and obstruct their opponents. As the center decayed and dysfunction grew, arguments between politicians gave way to political violence in the streets. The stage was set for destructive civil wars -- and ultimately the imperial reign of Augustus. The death of Rome's Republic was not inevitable. In Mortal Republic, Watts shows it died because it was allowed to, from thousands of small wounds inflicted by Romans who assumed that it would last forever.