Emperor of Rome: The Instant Sunday Times Bestseller Paperback – 4 July 2024

A fresh take on Emperors of Rome by an accomplished academic in this field. Mary structures her writing in a cohesive and coherent academic style that ensures the reader can follow. Her writing conveys the same bounce, clarity and enthusiasm as on TV and you can hear her voice speaking to you in the text. I wish Mary had been my teacher at school and I would have been captivated and never given up on History in my teens.

Really enjoying this book. Big fan of Mary Beard. If you like history on Romans then read this book.

The maps and illustrations do not work on Kindle - a pity, as the content is cleverly structured and brilliantly written.

Mary Beard's books are always both scholarly and accessible, and this is no different. Recommended.However, so far as I can see, the colour plates/pictures are missing from the Kindle version. They are listed in the contents but not linked (and nor can I see them anywhere). The black and white illustrations - in line with the text - are included and the links in the contents work for these. The missing colour photos is annoying but should not detract from reading the book.

Professor Beard has excelled again with this book. Brilliant work of research which goes beyond the normal biographical details of Roman emperors. I wished I had bought the hard back as this book will.be in a prime position with my other 100 books on Ancient Rome.

Great to read about the nature of Roman life through the lens of its autocratic leaders rather than through a typical chronological one. Posed lots of questions I hadn’t considered and i came away from the book with a much wider field of view of this fascinating ancient society. Good fun too!

Slightly disappointed in this, for two reason. First, it's slackily written, at times I wondered if it was dictated, rather than written. Sharp editing would have cut this by a third or more and made it a better read, but no doubt publishers are loathe to take a stern line with TV authors they know'll sell hugely whatever. Second, although I never studied the period, there wasn't a huge amount that was new to me, as there would have been in a book on the Chinese emperor, say. Still, some interesting bits on religion, and statues and portraits.

Very similar in content to the Washington lectures she did. Still informative and a useful read.