Review by Choice Review
Historians of ancient Rome will be familiar with the subject of this book--the death of the Roman Republic, the deaths of Antony and Cleopatra, and the devolution of power on the only warlord left standing, Octavian, the future Emperor Augustus. But Watts (Univ. of California, San Diego) has tried to give the tale relevance for 21st-century US politics. The actors are well known: Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Julius Caesar, Cato, Brutus, Cassius. They saw themselves as defenders of liberty, but in Rome, liberty was more a slogan owned by a narrow ruling elite unable to accommodate demographic and social change. Rome had acquired an empire, but imperial administration was ramshackle and corrupt. In the provinces, the republic's death was unmourned. In the last brief chapter, "Choosing Augustan Liberty," Watt examines why the republic died. He recognizes that the warlords who brought it down were helped by 1,000 wounds inflicted by earlier politicians playing the deadly game of politics for their own advantage. Some Romans were able to recognize that social changes demanded reforms, but the republic could not make the reforms peacefully. Too many pressure groups could not accommodate one another and resorted to violence. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates; graduate students; general readers. --James A. S. Evans, emeritus, University of British Columbia
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review
LATE-LIFE LOVE: A Memoir, by Susan Gubar. (Norton, $25.95.) The influential literary critic blends tales of her marriage, her cancer treatments and her husband's age-related infirmities with discussions of works whose meaning has changed for her over time; her rereadings confirm her talents as a teacher. MORTAL REPUBLIC: How Rome Fell Into Tyranny, by Edward J. Watts. (Basic, $32.) By the second century B.C., the proud Roman Republic had been brought low by inequity, corruption and populist politicians. Since America's founders modeled it on the Roman example, Watts, a historian, warns that it behooves us to understand what went wrong over 2,000 years ago. MUHAMMAD: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires, by Juan Cole. (Nation, $28.) Cole offers an ambitiously revisionist picture of the father of Islam, replacing the idea of a militant leader with one of a peacemaker who wanted only to preach his monotheism freely and even sought "multicultural" harmony. INSURRECTO, by Gina Apostol. (Soho, $26.) Set in the Philippines, this novel raises provocative questions about history and hypocrisy as it follows two women with dueling modern-day film scripts about a colonial-era massacre. MY BROTHER'S HUSBAND: Volume 2, by Gengoroh Tagamé. Translated by Anne Ishii. (Pantheon, $25.95.) A sweet satire of Japan's taboo against gay marriage, this manga-style graphic novel is a sophisticated investigation into the nature of love, marriage, divorce, bereavement and nontraditional child-rearing. IN OUR MAD AND FURIOUS CITY, by Guy Gunaratne. (MCD/Farrar, Straus & Giroux, paper, $16.) Gunaratne's striking, Bookerlonglisted debut unfolds over a few restless days in a workingclass Northwest London suburb. Despite the rush of drama indicated by its title, the book should be read for its quieter details - Gunaratne, with a gift for characterization, presents the kinds of Londoners not often seen in contemporary fiction. THE DAY THE SUN DIED, by Yan Lianke. Translated by Carlos Rojas. (Grove, $26.) This brutal satirical novel takes place on a single night, when a plague of somnambulism unleashes a host of suppressed emotions among the inhabitants of a Chinese village. The ensuing chaos is promptly struck from the official record. TELL THEM OF BATTLES, KINGS, AND ELEPHANTS, by Mathias Énard. Translated by Charlotte Mandel. (New Directions, paper, $19.95.) In this intoxicating novel, set in 1506, Michelangelo sets up shop in Constantinople to design a bridge connecting Europe and Asia. SLEEP OF MEMORY, by Patrick Modiano. Translated by Mark Polizzotti. (Yale, $24.) The Nobel laureate's dreamlike novels summon elusive, half-forgotten episodes. Here, that means Paris in the '60s, love affairs, a flirtation with the occult and a shocking crime. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [January 31, 2019]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Watts (The Final Pagan Generation) outlines the end of the Roman republic to show "how republics built on Rome's model might respond to particular stresses," in this quick and clear, if at times dry, primer. Watts begins by depicting Rome's journey to the status equivalent of a modern world power, by defeating Greek king Pyrrhus in 280 BCE, taking on Carthage in the Punic Wars, and achieving a final victory over Hannibal's Carthage in 202 BCE. The book moves briskly through the evolution of the republic's democracy in subsequent decades, including an early example of demagogic populism in the election and reign of Tiberius. The book ends with a deep analysis of Caesar's ascent to autocratic power, his murder, and the rise of Emperor Augustus in 27 BCE. Readers will find many parallels to today's fraught political environment: the powerful influence of money in politics, a "delegitimized establishment," and "the emergence of a personality-driven, populist politicking." Watts ably and accessibly-if in a somewhat formal, scholarly style-covers a lot of ground in a manner accessible to all readers, including those with little knowledge of Roman history. This well-crafted analysis makes clear the subject matter's relevance to contemporary political conversations. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
In this swift and competent work, Watts (history, Univ. of California San Diego; The Final Pagan Generation) argues that analyzing how the Roman Republic gave way to the Augustan Principate in 27 BCE can explicate the current situation within the United States. The author traverses the period stretching from Rome's rise to preeminence during the second Punic War (218-02 BCE) to the end of the republic, detailing key developments, particularly focusing on the abandonment of compromise and traditional norms that held Roman politics together and fostered centuries of stability. While there are striking similarities of norm abandonment as well as the vilification of both political opponents and compromise in the United States, one cannot help but note that the story of Rome's collapse is one of increasing political and civil violence. VERDICT Watts's latest offers a solid argument and serves as a fine historical companion to Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt's How Democracies Die. It will appeal to audiences interested in both popular Roman history and contemporary American affairs.-Evan M. Anderson, Kirkendall P.L., Ankeny, IA © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
In a timely book of ancient history, an eminent classicist looks at Rome's decline from representative government to corrupt empire.What killed the Roman Republic? It wasn't plague, external enemies, civil war, or corruption, although all of those things played a role. No, writes Watts (Chair, History/Univ. of California, San Diego; Hypatia: The Life and Legend of an Ancient Philosopher, 2017, etc.), author of the superb The Final Pagan Generation (2015). What killed the Republic was its electorate. "A republic is not an organism," he writes, meaningfully. "It has no natural life span. It lives or dies solely on the basis of choices made by those in charge of its custody." That electorate chose to trade the freedoms and responsibilities of representative government for the security of the Pax Augusta, for "they came to believe that freedom from oppression could only exist in a polity controlled by one man." Watts chronicles the death as one by which the ambitions of would-be rulers, bribes offered and accepted, and votes bought and sold all contributed to the arrival of imperial and totalitarian rule. The seeds of destruction had been scattered long before the fact. As the author writes, for instance, even Rome at its height was no stranger to scandals, in one case requiring the unheard-of executions of three Vestal Virgins whose behavior had not, in fact, been appropriately virginal. Still, better angels often spoke, as when Pompey and Crassus, political foes on the brink of civil war, agreed to follow the rules such that "the most powerful men in the Roman state clearly specified that they trusted the system to protect them from their rivals and to allow them to compete fairly within the rules it set." Given that mistrust of institutions is a key ingredient in the collapse of republican rule, as we are witnessing daily, the lesson is pointed.An engaging, accessible history that, read between the lines, offers commentary on today's events as well as those of two millennia past. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
