A deeply cautionary tale of how not to keep a republic.
A classicist turns in a searching study of how republics become dictatorships.
Americans today, writes Pitzer College classics professor Berenfeld, have an odd tendency to idolize the Roman Empire, a much different attitude from that of the Founding Fathers, who considered the likes of Julius Caesar and Sulla as “a worst-case scenario.” The demise of the Roman Republic has served as inspiration to would-be dictators ever since, including, by Berenfeld’s account, the current occupant of the White House. Take the case of Augustus Caesar, the first emperor, of whom the author writes, “If the Romans had a Nobel Peace Prize, Augustus would have given it to himself.” Augustus considered himself the center of the world, slapping his name all over public buildings and coins, remaking Rome to suit his tastes, purging the government of all but loyalists, and hijacking cultural institutions and writers (Virgil and Horace, to name a couple) to sing his praises and tell the history he wanted told. Augustus couldn’t have done all this alone, though; as Berenfeld notes, the Roman Senate ceded its legislative authority to the executive “without a fight,” abandoning elections and showering Augustus with honors and awards—mostly out of fear but also for favors in turn. Augustus took the republic they gave him and made it a tyranny that ruled with ruthless violence for the next thousand years. “Like the American Senate, the Roman Senate had adopted the role of either enemy or lackey of whoever was able to hold on to sole power over their government for more than a few minutes.” That ceding of power was the key ingredient to dictatorship, as was the Roman equivalent of governance by executive order, abandonment of due process, militarization of society, inequality, and other like matters. “Americans are still fashioning ourselves in the image of our Roman predecessors,” Berenfeld writes, “but we have changed what it is about them that we admire.”
A deeply cautionary tale of how not to keep a republic.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2026
ISBN: 9781966302216
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026
An erudite guide to the biblical world.
Revelations from the Old Testament.
“The Bible has no rivals when it comes to the art of omission, of not saying what everyone would like to know,” observes Calasso (1941-2021), the acclaimed Italian publisher, translator, and explorer of myth, gods, and sacred ritual. In this probing inquiry into biblical mysteries, the author meditates on the complexities and contradictions of key events and figures. He examines the “enigmatic nature” of original sin in Genesis, an anomaly occurring in no other creation myth; God’s mandate of circumcision for all Jewish men; and theomorphism in the form of Adam: a man created in the image of the god who made him. Among the individuals Calasso attends to in an abundantly populated volume are Saul, the first king of Israel; the handsome shepherd David, his successor; David’s son Solomon, whose relatively peaceful reign allowed him “to look at the world and study it”; Moses, steeped in “law and vengeance,” who incited the slaughter of firstborn sons; and powerful women, including the Queen of Sheba (“very beautiful and probably a witch”), Jezebel, and the “prophetess” Miriam, Moses’ sister. Raging throughout is Yahweh, a vengeful God who demands unquestioned obedience to his commandments. “Yahweh was a god who wanted to defeat other gods,” Calasso writes. “I am a jealous God,” Yahweh proclaims, “who punishes the children for the sins of their fathers, as far as the third and fourth generations.” Conflicts seemed endless: During the reigns of Saul and David, “war was constant, war without and war within.” Terse exchanges between David and Yahweh were, above all, “military decisions.” David’s 40-year reign was “harrowing and glorious,” marked by recurring battles with the Philistines. Calasso makes palpable schisms and rivalries, persecutions and retributions, holocausts and sacrifices as tribal groups battled one another to form “a single entity”—the people of Israel.
An erudite guide to the biblical world.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-374-60189-8
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An authoritative guide leads an illuminating journey into the distant past.
A noted Egyptologist follows the search for burial sites.
Former director of the Egypt Exploration Society and president of the International Association of Egyptologists, Naunton has presented his research in several TV documentaries, most recently King Tut’s Tomb: The Hidden Chamber (2016). He makes his book debut with an insightful, informative, and beautifully illustrated overview of archaeologists’ quests to find the tombs of some of the most famous individuals of the ancient world—Imhotep, Nefertiti, Cleopatra, and the Macedonian leader Alexander the Great foremost among them—that so far have eluded discovery. Along with chronicling expeditions, Naunton provides colorful biographies of these major historical figures and the world they inhabited. The 19th-century craze for Egyptian antiquities resulted in major finds, but despite two centuries of efforts, much has not been revealed. Of the tombs that have been discovered over the years, the author notes that many have been found empty, plundered by robbers lusting after the considerable wealth buried with the mummified corpse. Some robberies, he speculates, were likely carried out by the same people who buried the deceased or by workers involved in the construction of a new tomb that opened accidentally into the old one. Naunton vividly describes the sumptuous riches of burial sites: In 1939, for example, a team under the direction of French archaeologist Pierre Montet discovered a royal tomb containing a “falcon-headed coffin of solid silver,” a solid gold funerary mask, a scarab of lapis lazuli, and objects made of other precious materials. The following year, his team discovered a mummy “wrapped in almost unimaginable riches,” including 22 bracelets, solid gold toe and finger rings, and jeweled weapons, amulets, and canes. While it seems mysterious that the tombs of famous individuals should remain hidden, Naunton suggests that ancient “waves of rebuilding,” sieges, geological changes, and recent redevelopment have caused sites to be obscured. The tomb of Cleopatra and, perhaps, Marc Antony, for example, may lie buried in the sea, off the coast of Alexandria.
An authoritative guide leads an illuminating journey into the distant past.Pub Date: Nov. 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-500-05199-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
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