Browse our books below. You can also search for books.
MATTHEWS, J., The Roman Empire of Ammianus. Duckworth, London, 1989. XIII,608p. Original green cloth with dust wrps. Spine gilt titled. Cloth a bit scratched. Upper edge with small stain. Dust wrps a bit creased to the back, a bit edge worn and discoloured to spine. Signature in pencil on free endpaper. May require extra shipping costs: weight including packing from 1 - 2 Kg. 'Like the 'History' that inspired it, Matthews new book is long, discursive, occasionally self-indulgent and frequently repetitive, but always immensely entertaining and stimulating. (...) M. displays a very modern appreciation of the 'History' as living 'text', paying great attention, for example, to 'the layers of conventions and technique' that stand between it and the twentieth-century reader, and so refusing to treat it simply as a convenient quarry of historical information. His constant emphasis on the importance of a knowledge of physical and human geogrpahy in understanding the world of the late Empire is a further indication of the influence on his methodology of modern historiographical trends. The whole amounts to a carefully crafted work, rich in detail and acutely argued, that fully and generously acknowledges the work of other scholars and (...) certainly achieved its aim of bringing out Ammianus' 'qualities as a historical writer and ... the sheer range of subject matter actually encompassed by his text' (p.X).' (J.F. DRINKWATER in The Classical Review (New Series), 1991, pp.84-85). € 55.00 (Antiquarian) ISBN: 9780715622469