Search Book Reviews
Browse Content (p. 24)
Book Review
In Praise of Polytheism
Polytheism is superior to monotheism when exchanging religious convictions with others. This is what Maurizio Bettini argues in his brief and clearly written book of short while easily digestible chapters titled In Praise of Polytheism. Published...
Book Review
Profit: An Environmental History
After the Industrial Revolution, factories appeared throughout the world, producing more and more affordable goods while exploiting our environment. Besides air pollution, rivers have been contaminated by waste, and mining has eroded soil...
Book Review
The Roman Empire: Second Edition
In 1995, Colin Wells published the second edition of his 1984 book, The Roman Empire, with the express goals of including newer theories, updating the "Suggestions for Further Reading" section, and correcting various editorial mistakes. The...
Book Review
Women, Peace and Welfare: A Suppressed History of Social Reform, 1880-1920
From the outset, Ann Oakley’s Women, Peace and Welfare: A Suppressed History of Social Reform, 1880-1920 sets an ambitious goal of recovering the memory of the female reformers active during these years who made important contributions to...
Book Review
The Essential Greek Historians
In his introduction to The Essential Greek Historians, an important distinction is made by the editor Stanley M. Burstein: what follows in this book is not "history" but "historiography." History is made up of events and consequences, an...
Book Review
1368: China and the Making of the Modern World
Globalization is a current buzzword in business, communications, and politics, especially in this early part of the 21st century. Traditional American historical interpretations focus on the post-World War II era of the 1950s and 1960s as...
Book Review
On the Way to the "(Un)Known"?: The Ottoman Empire in Travelogues (c. 1450-1900)
Some people like to believe that the Ottoman Empire was Europe’s ultimate “other.” Several European nations, not least the Serbs and the Hungarians, consider themselves those who held the Ottomans at bay. Some still consider the two sieges...
Book Review
Dante: A Life
Writing a biography of Dante Alighieri is not an easy task even for the most talented historians. In narrating the life of the great Florentine poet, universally considered the initiator of Italian literature, scholars often excessively focus...
Book Review
Strategos: Born in the Borderlands
Strategos: Born in the Borderlands, by Gordon Doherty, is a novel following the incredible exploits of Apion, a Byzantine boy living among Seljuk farmers in the lawless area at the edge of Byzantium in the 1040’s CE. Set in Anatolia (modern-day...
Book Review
Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire
As the title suggests, Caroline Elkins's book tells the history of what historians call the “second British Empire” - the imperial developments that took shape after the disastrous loss of the rebellious American colonies in 1783 - through...
