Ancient Rome: History of a Civilization That Ruled the World

The cultural legacy of ancient Rome is made tangible in this extraordinary album, which combines hundreds of magnificent color photographs with an overview of Rome's political history, relentless expansion, daily life, artistic blossoming and decline. Liberati, a scholar at the Museum of Roman Civilization in Rome, and Bourbon, an Italian archeologist and art historian, have produced an album that will delight and reward both novices and specialists. Aided by color maps, dramatic aerial and on-site photographs and highly detailed color drawings, they chart the young republic's transformation into an unwieldy empire, its intensive exploitation of the lands it conquered, its architecture, literary and philosophical culture. A particularly valuable section documents the spread of Roman civilization from Gaul and Germany--cornerstones of the empire--to far-flung outposts like Britannia, the Danube provinces, Iberia, Syria and Armenia. (Nov.)