• Features
  • New Books
  • Biggest New Books
  • Fiction
  • Non-Fiction
  • All Categories
  • First Readers Club Daily Giveaway
  • How It Works
 
 
 
Features
New Books
Biggest New Books
Fiction
Non-Fiction
All Categories


Rome: A History in Seven Sackings

Matthew Kneale

Buy Now

Buy From a Local Bookstore
Publisher
Simon & Schuster
Date
May 18, 2018
History
Non-Fiction
A sprawling city with an ancient history, Rome defies a neat narrative of its past.

Embed our reviews widget for this book

What is this?
Positive
Based on 6 reviews

Rave

Positive

Mixed

Pan

What The Reviewers Say
Rave Aaron Retica,
The New York Times Book Review
The brilliance of his own raid on Rome lies in the principle of selectivity he has brought to it—what is done to Rome matters as much as what Rome does to the world—and the depth of his research (his informative source notes cover 18 pages). He is giving us a tour, but he is also making a case about the interpenetration of the cultures that mixed as the sackings unfolded ... There is a lot of church history, as there must be, which he handles quite well, and a fair number of plagues, floods and earthquakes to go with the violence and plunder of the sackings themselves. Reading Kneale’s book, you are sometimes left to wonder how anything in Rome has been left standing at all ... He quotes an American nun describing the arrival of a jeep with four American soldiers in it: 'The thing looked so solitary, yet so significant in the cool stillness of the dawn. I had it all to myself for a few seconds.' This kind of sensitivity to language is unusual in a book intended for a popular audience. Whether they are drawn from legendary ancient historians or unsung modern eyewitnesses, moments like this one are what put Kneale one step ahead of most other Roman chroniclers.
Read Full Review >>
Rave Greg Woolf,
The Wall Street Journal
In Rome Matthew Kneale, a British novelist whose works reveal a deep understanding of the tangled human life of cities, has had the good idea of writing the biography of Rome not as a study in longevity but as a tale of disaster. Disaster after disaster, in fact, as the city faced invasions of Gauls and Goths, Byzantines and Normans, Catholic and Protestant armies in the wars of religion, Napoleon and the Nazis, and somehow survived each trauma ... The effect is rather like that of a biologist telling the story of life on earth in terms of mass extinctions. The sacks of Rome were nowhere near as traumatic. Before gunpowder it was not that easy for armies to do serious damage to cities built of stone and brick, but invaders could steal treasures, commit rape and murder, terrify residents and generally make them doubt the power of their gods or god ... Yet Rome has survived, a beautiful jumbled collection of ruins and stories. Marx wrote that 'the tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.' Romans today seem to enjoy an altogether more tranquil relationship with their past, somehow making antiquities part of the furniture of a civilized life lived largely outdoors. At least by day, it is now difficult for the visitor to conjure up many ghosts. Mr. Kneale’s achievement is to remind us of the past upheavals that lie only a few inches beneath the cobbled streets of the eternal city.
Read Full Review >>
Positive Christian House,
The Guardian
'Both peace and war have played their part in making Rome the extraordinary place it is today,' writes Matthew Kneale. However, his stirring history of the Eternal City is heavy on the hostilities. Rome has been occupied, ravaged and reshaped by, among others, the Gauls, Goths, Normans and Nazis, plus some domestic 'sacking' by Mussolini’s mob ... Fractured stories come naturally to Kneale...here, he carefully pieces together an episodic portrait of a population as flexible in conflict as they are in business and matrimony.
Read Full Review >>
See All Reviews >>

SIMILAR BOOKS
Culture

Rave

Positive

Mixed

Pan

In Putin's Footsteps: Searching for the Soul of …
Nina Khrushcheva
Positive

History

Rave

Positive

Mixed

Pan

The Empire and the Five Kings: America's Abdicat…
Bernard-Henri Levy
Positive

Graphic Nonfiction

Rave

Positive

Mixed

Pan

Eugene V. Debs: A Graphic Biography
Paul Buhle, Steve Max, Noah Van Sciver, and Dave Nance
Pan

History

Rave

Positive

Mixed

Pan

Nature's Mutiny: How the Little Ice Age of the L…
Philipp Blom
Mixed

History

Rave

Positive

Mixed

Pan

The Darkest Year: The American Home Front 1941-1…
William K Klingaman
Positive


What did you think of Rome: A History in Seven Sackings?
  • About
    • Get the Book Marks Bulletin

  • Categories
    Fiction
    Fantasy
    Graphic Novels
    Historical
    Horror
    Literary
    Mystery, Crime, & Thriller
    Poetry
    Romance
    Speculative
    Story Collections
    Non-Fiction
    Art
    Biography
    Criticism
    Culture
    Essays
    Film & TV
    Graphic Nonfiction
    History
    Investigative Journalism
    Memoir
    Music
    Nature
    Politics
    Religion
    Science
    Social Sciences
    Sports
    Technology
    Travel
  • Lithub Daily

      February 20, 2019

      • The scientist who tests DNA found in old books.
      • Tim Parks on how we write differently on a screen.
      • Meg Wolitzer annotates a page from The Wife.
      • What is the philosophical heart of democratic socialism?

© LitHub