SPQR

Fast-moving, exciting, psychologically acute, warmly sceptical -- Bryan Appleyard * Sunday Times * Vastly engaging ... a tremendously enjoyable and scholarly read. -- Natalie Haynes * Observer * Sustaining the energy that such a topic demands for more than 600 pages, while providing a coherent answer to the question of why Rome expanded so spectacularly, is hugely ambitious. Beard succeeds triumphantly ... full of insights and delights ... SPQR is consistently enlivened by Beard's eye for detail and her excellent sense of humour. * Sunday Times * Masterful ... This is exemplary popular history, engaging but never dumbed down, providing both the grand sweep and the intimate details that bring the distant past vividly to life * Economist * Ground-breaking ... invigorating ... revolutionary ... a whole new approach to ancient history -- Thomas Hodgkinson * Spectator * This book is a treasure, both as a fascinating read in itself and as a fine work of reference to correct our lazy misconceptions about an ancient world that still has much to instruct us today * Herald * Praise for Mary Beard: 'She's pulled off that rare trick of becoming a don with a high media profile who hasn't sold out, who is absolutely respected by the academy for her scholarship ... what she says is always powerful and interesting * Guardian * An irrepressible enthusiast with a refreshing disregard for convention * FT * Dynamically, wittily and authoritatively brings the ancient world to life -- Simon Sebag Montefiore With such a champion as Beard to debunk and popularise, the future of the study of classics is assured * Daily Telegraph *