Author:Appian,John Carter
Taken from Appian's Roman History, the five books collected here form the sole surviving continuous historical narrative of the era between 133-35 BC - a time of anarchy and instability for the Roman Empire. A masterly account of a turbulent epoch, they describe the Catiline conspiracy; the rise and fall of the First Triumvirate; the murder of Julius Caesar; the formation of the Second Triumvirate by Antonius, Octavian, and Lepidus; and brutal civil war. A compelling depiction of the decline of the Roman state into brutality and violence, The Civil Wars portrays political discontent, selfishness and the struggle for power - a struggle that was to culminate in a titanic battle for mastery over the Roman Empire, and the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra by Octavian in 31 BC
Lucid and comprehensive-a vivid essay on wartime blunders and the post-war bluster that tried to hide them
—— Charles King , Times Literary SupplementExhaustively researched and scholarly-an exciting story and one that benefits from accounts written at the time by various soldiers and observers
—— Beryl Bainbridge , GuardianBetween these covers you will find a wholly unpretentious, terrifyingly honest breakdown of a war-exceptionally harrowing and impossible to put down
—— Mick Middles , Manchester Evening NewsPonting is both incisive and original in his account of what contemporaries called the "Russian War"
—— Michael Kerrigan , ScotsmanGutsy, humorous and a tiny bit snobby, she's a brilliant correspondent and chronicler of the times.
—— Sainsbury's MagazineA wonderful, insightful illustration of the activities, thoughts and feelings of a young woman during the turbulent time of war.
—— Family History MonthlyLively letters from Maureen, a Wren, to her RAF boyfriend kept their romance alive from 1941-45. Eric, who married her, was a lucky man.
—— Saga MagazineChildren are history's forgotten people; amidst the sound and fury of battle, as commanders decide the fate of empires, they are never seen. Yet as Nicholas Stargardt reveals in his heart-rending account of children's lives under the Nazis, to ignore them is to leave history half-written. This is an excellent book and it tells a terrible story... As Stargardt so eloquently reminds us, the tragedy is that children were part of the equation and suffered accordingly
—— Trevor Royle , Sunday Herald'Nicholas Stargardt evokes the individual voices of children under Nazi rule. In re-creating their wartime experiences, he has produced a challenging new historical interpretation of the Second World War
—— History Today