REVIEW: SPQR (Mary Beard)

Book: SPQR

Author: Mary Beard

Premise: Ancient Rome matters. We still judge ourselves against its history of empire. Its debates about rights of the individual influence how we think about civil liberty today. Covering a thousand years of Roman history, Mary Beard reveals how Rome grew from an insignificant village to the first global superpower.

I knew very little about the history of ancient Rome before reading this. I hadn't realised how many foundations for society the Romans had set. There were so many examples of modern political ideologies that were founded in Rome. Mary Beard explained how the empire created the need for emperors rather than the other way round, which I hadn't considered. In fact, I hadn't realised how late in Roman history the emperors appeared!

This book is super interesting and it satisfied my curiosity about Rome. However it is long and dense so it was slow going reading it. I'd recommend having something light on the go alongside this book, just to give your brain a break from sucking up the information!