In an erudite look beyond the Roman Empire’s walls (which he traced in The Reach of Rome, 1997), freelancer Williams examines the frontier of first-century Rome from the Roman perspective and, more speculatively, from the viewpoint of nearby barbarian tribes. After the creation of the imperial Roman state, the frontier became a critical bulwark of pax Romana against barbarian tribes, who lived in a preliterate and Iron Age culture. Without a barbarian literature, Williams is limited to Roman viewpoints, of which he chooses four. The first is that of the poet Ovid, exiled by the emperor to the Black Sea for an indiscretion that can only be guessed at, who left grim narratives of savage head-hunting Sarmatian nomads. Williams’s second subject is Quintillius Varus, a lawyer, who led the Roman legions into one of the empire’s greatest disasters at the hands of German barbarians, the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 a.d. Varus’ legendary defeat at the hands of Armin (traditionally, Hermann or Arminius), a German tribesman and former Roman legionary, showed Roman hubris and overconfidence in Roman arms at their worst, and halted Roman incursions into Germany. The historian Tacitus is a primary source for information on the Varian disaster, as well as on Williams’s third subject, the conquest of the Celtic Britons at the hands of Claudius and Agricola. Finally, Williams uses Trajan’s triumphal sculpture at the heart of Rome as a launching point to discuss his conquest of Dacia on the Black Sea. Though the frontier created by Roman conquests seemed strong enough in the first century, Williams shows that it created a permanent problem for Rome—the continual presence of alien tribes. Two societies, one historic, the other prehistoric, coexisted uneasily, and as Roman military power weakened, the two transformed each other to make possible the creation of Europe. A vivid picture of the clash between ancient civilization and prehistoric cultures. (8 maps, b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1999
ISBN: 0-312-19958-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
Bernstein and Woodward, the two Washington Post journalists who broke the Big Story, tell how they did it by old fashioned seat-of-the-pants reporting — in other words, lots of intuition and a thick stack of phone numbers. They've saved a few scoops for the occasion, the biggest being the name of their early inside source, the "sacrificial lamb" H**h Sl**n. But Washingtonians who talked will be most surprised by the admission that their rumored contacts in the FBI and elsewhere never existed; many who were telephoned for "confirmation" were revealing more than they realized. The real drama, and there's plenty of it, lies in the private-eye tactics employed by Bernstein and Woodward (they refer to themselves in the third person, strictly on a last name basis). The centerpiece of their own covert operation was an unnamed high government source they call Deep Throat, with whom Woodward arranged secret meetings by positioning the potted palm on his balcony and through codes scribbled in his morning newspaper. Woodward's wee hours meetings with Deep Throat in an underground parking garage are sheer cinema: we can just see Robert Redford (it has to be Robert Redford) watching warily for muggers and stubbing out endless cigarettes while Deep Throat spills the inside dope about the plumbers. Then too, they amass enough seamy detail to fascinate even the most avid Watergate wallower — what a drunken and abusive Mitchell threatened to do to Post publisher Katherine Graham's tit, and more on the Segretti connection — including the activities of a USC campus political group known as the Ratfuckers whose former members served as a recruiting pool for the Nixon White House. As the scandal goes public and out of their hands Bernstein and Woodward seem as stunned as the rest of us at where their search for the "head ratfucker" has led. You have to agree with what their City Editor Barry Sussman realized way back in the beginning — "We've never had a story like this. Just never."
Pub Date: June 18, 1974
ISBN: 0671894412
Page Count: 372
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1974
Harari delivers yet another tour de force.
A highly instructive exploration of “current affairs and…the immediate future of human societies.”
Having produced an international bestseller about human origins (Sapiens, 2015, etc.) and avoided the sophomore jinx writing about our destiny (Homo Deus, 2017), Harari (History/Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem) proves that he has not lost his touch, casting a brilliantly insightful eye on today’s myriad crises, from Trump to terrorism, Brexit to big data. As the author emphasizes, “humans think in stories rather than in facts, numbers, or equations, and the simpler the story, the better. Every person, group, and nation has its own tales and myths.” Three grand stories once predicted the future. World War II eliminated the fascist story but stimulated communism for a few decades until its collapse. The liberal story—think democracy, free markets, and globalism—reigned supreme for a decade until the 20th-century nasties—dictators, populists, and nationalists—came back in style. They promote jingoism over international cooperation, vilify the opposition, demonize immigrants and rival nations, and then win elections. “A bit like the Soviet elites in the 1980s,” writes Harari, “liberals don’t understand how history deviates from its preordained course, and they lack an alternative prism through which to interpret reality.” The author certainly understands, and in 21 painfully astute essays, he delivers his take on where our increasingly “post-truth” world is headed. Human ingenuity, which enables us to control the outside world, may soon re-engineer our insides, extend life, and guide our thoughts. Science-fiction movies get the future wrong, if only because they have happy endings. Most readers will find Harari’s narrative deliciously reasonable, including his explanation of the stories (not actually true but rational) of those who elect dictators, populists, and nationalists. His remedies for wildly disruptive technology (biotech, infotech) and its consequences (climate change, mass unemployment) ring true, provided nations act with more good sense than they have shown throughout history.
Harari delivers yet another tour de force.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-51217-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
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