- Hardcover
- Publisher: BCA; Reprint edition (1993)
- ASIN: B003JI7JVI
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 3,310,150 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
A History of Roman Britain
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
First Sentence
In this book we shall be looking at as long a stretch of time as from the Wars of the Roses to the present day. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
In this book we shall be looking at as long a stretch of time as from the Wars of the Roses to the present day. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
30 of 33 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have bought this book to help with my studies in field archaeology as I need to know an extensive amount about the Roman Period and his book has everything relevant, Salway writes in such a way that the average leyman can understand this simplistic but fascinating style of writing along with the footnotes have helped me write several essays this book is a goldmine of source material - the inclusion of several maps of Roman Britain is a stroke of pure genius.
I heartilly recommend this book to anyone who hads an extensive interest in Rome & it's people & empire.
However if the reader has only a passive interest in Roman History this may be heavy reading (and not entirely suitable for schoolchildren to use as a study aid) as Salway does tend to veer away from the point sometimes albeit for a short while it can be distracting and there are sometimes Omissions such as years (I know we cannot date archaeological evidence exactly but a 'ballpark' estimate would be nice) Salway also uses the writing of Tacitus a roman historian - sometimes so much so that I feel I no Longer need to read the writings of Tacitus as they all are here.
all in all an excellent aid for the older student.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
It always seems a bit impertinent to criticise a serious and scholarly book by an expert in a field in which one is not very knowledgeable oneself. Salway's book is balanced, full, well-sourced and ranges across the full history and geography of Britain 55 BC -circa 400. It combines narrative with analysis, mentions the problems scholars and archaeologists have debated, and is well sourced without being a cluttered mass of footnotes and bibliography. No dount its standards of research and accuracy are high.
Yet--and I do say this on the basis of loving the subject of Roman Britain, not disliking it--it is rather dull. (Worthy and dull?)
How could he have got round this? Some suggestions from a non-specialist:
--hanging explanations and issues round colourful but also crucial historical events and events
--starting chapters with stimulating and evocative "mysteries": just how did that archaeological find cause us to rethink? just what did that remark of Tacitus mean? just when and why did the Romans leave?
--shorter, punchier sentences. It is quite a good idea not to have an overall assertion and supporting eviednce in the same long sentence, and then further evidence in the next sentence: but it often happens here.
--putting key maps or tables at helpful places in the text instead of in a clump at the front.
One is reminded of that old adage: "Writing history is still writing". In places the style is not only flat but convoluted. To take a genuinely random example:
"If we are right in seeing the 'waves' of imported coins as representing actual movements of people--and it might be safer but unhelpful in constructing a hypothesis simply to record the coins without interruption--then it was probably in the later second century BC that Britain first began to feel the pressure from Germany on the people known to the ancients vaguely as the Belgae".
Surely there are better ways to say this? This book is much easier to put down than to keep open, I fear.
Yet--and I do say this on the basis of loving the subject of Roman Britain, not disliking it--it is rather dull. (Worthy and dull?)
How could he have got round this? Some suggestions from a non-specialist:
--hanging explanations and issues round colourful but also crucial historical events and events
--starting chapters with stimulating and evocative "mysteries": just how did that archaeological find cause us to rethink? just what did that remark of Tacitus mean? just when and why did the Romans leave?
--shorter, punchier sentences. It is quite a good idea not to have an overall assertion and supporting eviednce in the same long sentence, and then further evidence in the next sentence: but it often happens here.
--putting key maps or tables at helpful places in the text instead of in a clump at the front.
One is reminded of that old adage: "Writing history is still writing". In places the style is not only flat but convoluted. To take a genuinely random example:
"If we are right in seeing the 'waves' of imported coins as representing actual movements of people--and it might be safer but unhelpful in constructing a hypothesis simply to record the coins without interruption--then it was probably in the later second century BC that Britain first began to feel the pressure from Germany on the people known to the ancients vaguely as the Belgae".
Surely there are better ways to say this? This book is much easier to put down than to keep open, I fear.
4 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If you are looking for a book that gives you the specific details of Roman Britian that's written in a way that's fairly easy to read unlike some books of this nature, then this is a book for you. It gives you more than just dates and makes a good addition to your library!
It has all kinds of fascinating details from what life was like in the country, religion, Britain before the Romans came and how it was after they left. It gives you so much more than just dates as someone suggested. Very good.
It has all kinds of fascinating details from what life was like in the country, religion, Britain before the Romans came and how it was after they left. It gives you so much more than just dates as someone suggested. Very good.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
