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The Roman News

By: Andrew Langley Philip De Souza
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Walker Books Ltd
ISBN: 0744577136
ISBN-13: 9780744577136
Released: 06 Mar 2000
RRP: £4.99
Average Rating:

Customer Reviews

Wanted to like it more than I did - By: , 28 Jul 2001
This thin book is certainly very attractive with its many graphics & easygoing style & probably in the end does stimulate interest for younger readers to try to find out more. It would have been nice however if some controversial conclusions about Roman history were not presented as fact. For example, it is not universallly agreed that Romulus was an historical person or that 753 BC is the actual date of the founding of the city. While I fully realize that the conceit of the book is that it is supposed to be a view of the world as the Romans themselves saw it, that does not excuse giving wrong information. Anyway, the Romans certainly did not use the term BC which is freely used here. And these are not the only cases. It would have been nice if the Colosseum were also given its proper name for example, the Flavian Amphitheater. It is surprising to see Diocletian criticized for dividing the empire as this is not universallly considered harmful by historians. And so on. I'm not entirely sure I agree with the ordering of the book either. Initiallly it goes in chronological order & then this is totallly abandoned as one skips ahead to Constantine, then back to Vespasian, forward to Hadrian, etc. Overalll, the book is worth buying, but an annotated guide to go with it would be quite helpful.