The Roman Empire
Colin Wells
Read in preparation for my trip to Rome, this book was at once inconceivably annoying and reasonably informative. Wells has a unique blend of the actual ability to convey historical information without boring to tears, only to have his power evaporate due to a complete and utter lack of editing of any sort. It's as if no one read the proofs. If Mr. Wells is British, surely some of our differences in grammatical opinions can be chalked up to dialect differences; regardless, this book is riddled with misplaced commas and truly appalling sentence structures. The most reprehensible error I may ever have seen in print is a reference to "Dicken's" [sic] as a possessive, when the author is clearly references Dickens the author (my edition of the MLA even uses this as a specific example, where the correct version is "Dickens's"). I have seen and sighed with exasperation over many misunderstandings of the poor maligned possessive apostrophe but this took me rather aback. Did no one edit this grammatical monstrosity? Is there no hope left? Misplaced commas abound and can usually be excused in books, but in books where they appear every few sentences they become utterly unbearable and distract so much from the content that the book becomes much more of an effort than the most laborious heavy-handed historical tomes.
What of the content, then? The content itself is relatively interesting, and the grammatical mistakes are even more tragic because Wells appears to have more talent than most historical writers. He wisely chooses to focus not only on the power struggles at the top of the Roman hierarchy, but also on life in the army and provinces, a crucial step towards understanding the Empire in its entirety. This objective, however, to expose the sum total of the Roman Empire, is somewhat hampered by Wells's (see what I did there?) own thinly veiled admiration of Octavian/Augustus, which occupies an unjustifiably large portion of the book. Again understandably, tracing the origins of the empire through Augustus is necessary, but in a brief history one must be brief and attempt to spread the information around a bit. Wells continually provides interesting and moderately well-presented information, but strange juxtapositions and inexcusable time shifts continuously break continuity and leave readers confused. Breaks between chapters contain understandable time shifts (chapters alternate between top-heavy and little-guy descriptions) but jumps also inexplicably occur within and between the supposedly continuous narratives of alternating chapters. Again, the information is well-presented and remarkably understandable, but Wells seems intent on confusing his readers.
This book, which in more organized hands could have been an engaging and useful history of the Roman Empire, succumbs in the end to Wells's inability to edit and think of the bigger picture. The author repeatedly insults Tacitus but uses him as one of his most trusted sources in the next sentence. Source problems aside, this is utterly confusing and makes no sense whatsoever, especially in light of the author's own well-placed and surprisingly honest discussion of the source material in the second chapter. Wells consistently allows his own bias to shine through the narrative, and rather than making the book lively and interesting, the work becomes dull and imposing. Wells thinks he is providing an objective look at the history he presents but the text time and again takes a ridiculously subjective turn that, rather than providing humor or witty commentary, is merely pompous and annoying. It's horrible that a well-written history is riddled with so many simple errors and greater errors of vision. History is so often written terribly, but Wells had such a chance to shine. Among his many faults is an interesting history of the Roman Empire that isn't terribly difficult to understand, something sorely lacking in historical writing today. Sadly, this book succumbs to an utter lack of editing and vision and is more than mediocre, endlessly annoying and confusing to an uninitiated reader, the book's stated prime audience.
Grade: C-
Colin Wells
Read in preparation for my trip to Rome, this book was at once inconceivably annoying and reasonably informative. Wells has a unique blend of the actual ability to convey historical information without boring to tears, only to have his power evaporate due to a complete and utter lack of editing of any sort. It's as if no one read the proofs. If Mr. Wells is British, surely some of our differences in grammatical opinions can be chalked up to dialect differences; regardless, this book is riddled with misplaced commas and truly appalling sentence structures. The most reprehensible error I may ever have seen in print is a reference to "Dicken's" [sic] as a possessive, when the author is clearly references Dickens the author (my edition of the MLA even uses this as a specific example, where the correct version is "Dickens's"). I have seen and sighed with exasperation over many misunderstandings of the poor maligned possessive apostrophe but this took me rather aback. Did no one edit this grammatical monstrosity? Is there no hope left? Misplaced commas abound and can usually be excused in books, but in books where they appear every few sentences they become utterly unbearable and distract so much from the content that the book becomes much more of an effort than the most laborious heavy-handed historical tomes.
What of the content, then? The content itself is relatively interesting, and the grammatical mistakes are even more tragic because Wells appears to have more talent than most historical writers. He wisely chooses to focus not only on the power struggles at the top of the Roman hierarchy, but also on life in the army and provinces, a crucial step towards understanding the Empire in its entirety. This objective, however, to expose the sum total of the Roman Empire, is somewhat hampered by Wells's (see what I did there?) own thinly veiled admiration of Octavian/Augustus, which occupies an unjustifiably large portion of the book. Again understandably, tracing the origins of the empire through Augustus is necessary, but in a brief history one must be brief and attempt to spread the information around a bit. Wells continually provides interesting and moderately well-presented information, but strange juxtapositions and inexcusable time shifts continuously break continuity and leave readers confused. Breaks between chapters contain understandable time shifts (chapters alternate between top-heavy and little-guy descriptions) but jumps also inexplicably occur within and between the supposedly continuous narratives of alternating chapters. Again, the information is well-presented and remarkably understandable, but Wells seems intent on confusing his readers.
This book, which in more organized hands could have been an engaging and useful history of the Roman Empire, succumbs in the end to Wells's inability to edit and think of the bigger picture. The author repeatedly insults Tacitus but uses him as one of his most trusted sources in the next sentence. Source problems aside, this is utterly confusing and makes no sense whatsoever, especially in light of the author's own well-placed and surprisingly honest discussion of the source material in the second chapter. Wells consistently allows his own bias to shine through the narrative, and rather than making the book lively and interesting, the work becomes dull and imposing. Wells thinks he is providing an objective look at the history he presents but the text time and again takes a ridiculously subjective turn that, rather than providing humor or witty commentary, is merely pompous and annoying. It's horrible that a well-written history is riddled with so many simple errors and greater errors of vision. History is so often written terribly, but Wells had such a chance to shine. Among his many faults is an interesting history of the Roman Empire that isn't terribly difficult to understand, something sorely lacking in historical writing today. Sadly, this book succumbs to an utter lack of editing and vision and is more than mediocre, endlessly annoying and confusing to an uninitiated reader, the book's stated prime audience.
Grade: C-
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