There is a disconect between rulers and those they govern. Their power, and the people they wield, guides the historical narrative, often distorting the truth. But sometimes, in rare moments of magnificence, by individual heroic, unselfish acts, all of their bluster and pretense is rendered insignificant. Mere window dressing for simple souls in need of comfort and reassurance. Easily swayed. For every great society, thousands will toil and suffer. Many will claim credit. Only one will have earned it. When magnificence was common. In 9AD, German barbarians will rise up in rebellion. Annihilate 3 of Rome's finest Legions, destroy a dozen forts, and drive the Romans from their land. United, they will stop Rome's northern expansion forever, and begin the destruction of Rome itself, saving Western civilization from an evil Empire. Erased from the record, is 52 days, that will change it all.

Figuring in myth, religion, law, the military, commerce, and transportation, rivers were at the heart of Rome's increasing exploitation of the environment of the Mediterranean world. In Rivers and the Power of Ancient Rome, Brian Campbell explores the role and influence of rivers and their surrounding landscape on the society and culture of the Roman Empire. Examining artistic representations of rivers, related architecture, and the work of ancient geographers and topographers, as well as writers who describe rivers, Campbell reveals how Romans defined the geographical areas they conquered and how geography and natural surroundings related to their society and activities. In addition, he illuminates the prominence and value of rivers in the control and expansion of the Roman Empire--through the legal regulation of riverine activities, the exploitation of rivers in military tactics, and the use of rivers as routes of communication and movement. Campbell shows how a technological understanding of--and even mastery over--the forces of the river helped Rome rise to its central place in the ancient world.

In the unseasonable heat of a spring morning in 80 B.C., Gordianus the Finder is summoned to the house of Cicero, a young advocate staking his reputation on a case involving the savage murder of the wealthy, sybaritic Sextus Roscius. Charged with the murder is Sextus's son, greed being the apparent motive. The punishment, rooted deep in Roman tradition, is horrific beyond imagining. The case becomes a political nightmare when Gordianus's investigation takes him through the city's raucous, pungent streets and deep into rural Umbria. Now, one man's fate may threaten the very leaders of Rome itself.

Could the killing of Germanicus Julius Caesar—the grandson of Mark Antony, adopted son of the emperor Tiberius, father of Caligula, and grandfather of Nero—while the Roman Empire was still in its infancy have been the root cause of the empire's collapse more than four centuries later? This brilliant investigation of Germanicus Caesar’s death and its aftermath is both a compelling history and first-class murder mystery with a plot twist Agatha Christie would envy.

The conquest of Lebensraum - living space - in Eastern Europe was the whole point of the Third Reich. This study investigates a key participant in the criminal project - Hans Frank - and how he tried to establish his corner of Hitler's racial empire. It reveals the different kinds of genocide perpetrated by the Nazis and explores the way in which the Führer's minions had to compete for a place in his apocalyptic system.

In this revised and expanded edition of Ancient Rome, author Paul A. Zoch presents the history and mythology of Rome, from its legendary progenitor Aeneas to the death of the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius in 180 c.e. Zoch guides readers through the military campaigns and political developments that shaped Rome’s rise from a small Italian city to the greatest imperial power the world had ever known, and he includes stories about its protagonists—such as Romulus and Remus, Horatius, and Nero—that are often omitted from more specialized studies. In Zoch’s retelling, the events and personalities of ancient Rome spring to life. We witness the long struggle against the enemy city of Carthage. We follow Caesar as he campaigns in Britain, and we observe the ebb and flow of Rome’s fortunes in the Hellenistic East. Emphasizing both the political and moral lessons to be learned from Roman history—and that remain relevant today—Zoch gives readers a narrative that is both entertaining and informative. An afterword takes the history to the fall of the Roman Empire in the West in 476 c.e.

In this vivid fifty-year history of Germany from 1871-1918—which inspired events that forever changed the European continent—here is the story of the Second Reich from its violent beginnings and rise to power to its calamitous defeat in the First World War. Before 1871, Germany was not yet nation but simply an idea. Its founder, Otto von Bismarck, had a formidable task at hand. How would he bring thirty-nine individual states under the yoke of a single Kaiser? How would he convince proud Prussians, Bavarians, and Rhinelanders to become Germans? Once united, could the young European nation wield enough power to rival the empires of Britain and France—all without destroying itself in the process? In this unique study of five decades that changed the course of modern history, Katja Hoyer tells the story of the German Empire from its violent beginnings to its calamitous defeat in the First World War. This often startling narrative is a dramatic tale of national self-discovery, social upheaval, and realpolitik that ended, as it started, in blood and iron.