Emperor of Rome

Britain's most famous classicist [is] at the peak of her powers ... Even more interesting than the insight into the imperial elite is the light the book sheds on the modern world -- Sathnam Sanghera * The Times * Lavishly illustrated ... erudite and entertaining ... Beard is so appealing and approachable that even the recalcitrant reader who previously gave not a single thought to the Roman Empire will warm to her subject -- Jennifer Szalai * New York Times * A beautiful book ... [Beard is] really good at thinking about some of the echoes between Roman politics and British politics, including today -- Rory Stewart * The Rest is Politics * The most famous historian of Rome sets the record straight -- Olivia B. Waxman * Time Magazine * [Mary Beard is] the best in the business -- Dan Snow * History Hit * Magisterial ... A beautifully written product of a lifetime of deep scholarly learning -- Martin Wolf * FT * Impressively detailed ... there's an immediacy to it all, as if the ancient world were not so long ago and easily understood -- 'Best History Books of 2023' * The Times * Mary Beard shows, through rich use of anecdote and decades of scholarship, what the traits and insecurities of the Roman emperors teach us about today -- 'The best history books of 2023' * Telegraph * A masterly group portrait, an invitation to think skeptically but not contemptuously of a familiar civilization ... Ms. Beard punctuates her erudite but easy prose with striking turns of phrase and arresting observations -- Kyle Harper * WSJ * An enthralling analysis of the wild stories that circulated about Rome's ruthless rulers ... Beard does a wonderful job of taking us into the maelstrom of fantasy, desire and projection that swirled around these rulers -- Kathryn Hughes * Guardian * There have been many fine books about the Romans this year ... but Mary Beard's Emperor of Rome still stands out ... she draws not just on a career's worth of classical-historical knowledge, but on a career's worth of thinking about how classical history itself - with its truths, lies and unknowns - should be approached. The result could be a manifesto for the discipline's future -- 'Books of the Year 2023: History' * Prospect * An erudite view on what it is to be an emperor on an everyday basis and how citizens experience life in an empire. As always with Beard, clichs are crushed. She debunks some of the most common myths about the Roman emperors, and her insights are relevant to our understanding of power and leadership today -- Rome de Goriainoff * Bloomberg * An extraordinary investigation into the gulf between the experience and the narrative of Roman autocracy ... Beard weaves a deliciously varied tapestry of detail drawn from across nearly three centuries -- Honor Cargill-Martin * Telegraph * Good emperors may not have been as virtuous as they were painted, nor bad ones so wicked ... all told in trademark exuberant Beard style ... Those familiar with her TV series can hear her voice in the way she writes, her passion for the subject oozing off the page -- Patrick Kidd * The Times * Chatty, fun, argumentative, fearless, and ferociously well-informed -- Robert McCrum * Independent * Fascinating ... hugely rewarding * Irish Times * Imposing, colourful, entertaining ... Distils a vast amount of scholarship into 410 pages * Irish Independent * Surprising and fascinating ... Explores what we can and can't know about the men who ruled the Roman Empire, and what the lurid stories about so many of them tell us about the anxieties and fantasies of Rome's ordinary citizens and the remarkable resilience of the regime -- Sam Leith * Spectator Book Club Podcast * For once, the horse races and the Circus Maximus, the true centre of Roman popular culture, get their rightful pride of place ... [The Roman emperors] were bringers of peace and insatiable conquerors, monsters on display and civilised citizens

Mary Beard is Professor Emerita of Classics at Cambridge, and the classics editor of the TLS. She has worldwide academic acclaim. Her previous books include the bestselling, Wolfson Prize-winning Pompeii, Confronting the Classics, SPQR and most recently, Women & Power and Twelve Caesars. She has made numerous television series and her books have been published in over thirty languages.