Book Reviews

“There was in Mercia in fairly recent times a certain vigorous king called Offa, who terrified all the neighbouring kings and provinces around him,” said Bishop Asser, a Welsh monk, in the 9th century, describing the peak of the “Mercian...

General readers would find this elegantly written work stimulating, while college and university faculty would welcome this as a much-needed textbook for their Indian history or world civilization courses. Audrey Truschke traverses a vast...

Democracy and security have never gotten along in American society; even as nearly everyone agrees that some information should be kept from the public, just as many agree that secrecy opens the door to corruption, tyranny, and conspiracy...

In the year 1014, Archbishop Wulfstan of York stood before his parishioners and delivered a damming lecture: “Nothing has prospered now for a long time either at home or abroad, but there has been military devastation and hunger, burning...

When Alfred the Great – often presented as England’s founding father – died in 899, much of England was still under Viking rule. His kingdom was restricted to the southern realms of Wessex (south of the Thames) and western Mercia (West Midlands...

Peter Burke’s The Italian Renaissance offers a cultural and sociological analysis of Renaissance Italy, rejecting traditional narratives that focus solely on individual genius. Instead, Burke argues that artists and intellectuals must be...

Many university students today have complained about the dryness and boringness of their history courses. Tore Olsson, Associate Professor of History at the University of Tennessee, who specializes in the US South and post-Civil War US, taught...

For many years, there have been many studies done on the Roman army. Many of the general studies have been popular, however, the more narrowly focused aspects of the Roman army have not gained as much attention. This book focuses on what...

Philostratus’s Heroikos, composed during the flourishing of the Second Sophistic, stands as a deeply layered literary and cultural artifact of the Roman Empire in the Severan period. Aitken and Maclean’s edition, Philostratus’s Heroikos...

While Cleopatra is one of the most famous women in history, there are many myths and misconceptions about her life. This book tells the true story of Cleopatra’s life and explains popular misconceptions in a way that is understandable to...