Roman history enthusiasts will find new material to digest and general readers, useful context for the Roman way of life.
An authoritative new history unearths the true story of a slave’s son who rose through the ranks to become the Roman Empire’s most powerful man.
Publius Helvius Pertinax (126-193 C.E.) was a military officer and civil servant who packed several lifetimes into his 66 years. Though he only served 86 days before he was assassinated, military historian and archaeologist Elliott takes the basic elements of his story to fashion a mostly readable account of his life. After years as a teacher, Pertinax switched careers at age 35 and entered the military, embarking on a “dizzying upward trajectory” capped by his short-lived reign as emperor. He occupied posts in Rome’s sophisticated military and governing machines in empire hot spots like Syria, Carthage, and Britannia, “the wild west of the Roman Empire,” where he served as governor and survived an assassination attempt by mutinous legionnaires. He endured periods of banishment but always came back to move further up the ladder of rank, prestige, and wealth. After the “deluded” Emperor Commodus was assassinated, Pertinax was drafted by the Senate to become the new emperor. But he ran afoul of the Praetorian Guard, a state-sanctioned band of mercenaries ready to sell the empire's throne to the highest bidder. Pertinax’s story shows how an ordinary Roman citizen—even the son of a slave—could negotiate a rigid class and caste system. Elliott, author of several books about Roman affairs, has a deep understanding of Roman life, especially as it was lived in Britannia. His challenge is that there is very little personal information in accounts of Pertinax’s life, and he fills the gaps with more particulars about military life than are likely to interest general readers. The author vividly documents Pertinax’s last days and effectively captures the tenor of the era, a time awash in corruption and violence.
Roman history enthusiasts will find new material to digest and general readers, useful context for the Roman way of life.Pub Date: Dec. 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-78438-525-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Greenhill Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Gibbins combines historical knowledge with a sense of adventure, making this book a highly enjoyable package.
A popular novelist turns his hand to historical writing, focusing on what shipwrecks can tell us.
There’s something inherently romantic about shipwrecks: the mystery, the drama of disaster, the prospect of lost treasure. Gibbins, who’s found acclaim as an author of historical fiction, has long been fascinated with them, and his expertise in both archaeology and diving provides a tone of solid authority to his latest book. The author has personally dived on more than half the wrecks discussed in the book; for the other cases, he draws on historical records and accounts. “Wrecks offer special access to history at all…levels,” he writes. “Unlike many archaeological sites, a wreck represents a single event in which most of the objects were in use at that time and can often be closely dated. What might seem hazy in other evidence can be sharply defined, pointing the way to fresh insights.” Gibbins covers a wide variety of cases, including wrecks dating from classical times; a ship torpedoed during World War II; a Viking longship; a ship of Arab origin that foundered in Indonesian waters in the ninth century; the Mary Rose, the flagship of the navy of Henry VIII; and an Arctic exploring vessel, the Terror (for more on that ship, read Paul Watson’s Ice Ghost). Underwater excavation often produces valuable artifacts, but Gibbins is equally interested in the material that reveals the society of the time. He does an excellent job of placing each wreck within a broader context, as well as examining the human elements of the story. The result is a book that will appeal to readers with an interest in maritime history and who would enjoy a different, and enlightening, perspective.
Gibbins combines historical knowledge with a sense of adventure, making this book a highly enjoyable package.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781250325372
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
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