98 Books Like Falling Sky

The end of the Roman Empire in the west is a fascinating but notoriously vague saga, which often seems to be composed entirely of footnotes. In this novel John Henry Clay takes a handful of those footnotes and rebuilds mid 5th century Gaul and Italy on a grand scale. The empire is on its knees, but the aristocratic elites of the southern provinces are still living the good life on their villa estates, until all is thrown into turmoil by the invasion of Attila and his Huns. Part family drama, part broad-canvas military and political epic, the first half of the novel reaches a climax in the defeat of the Hunnic hordes by General Aetius. But in its second half the story accelerates dramatically, as Avitus, the father of the central pair of characters, leads a Romano-Gothic army from Gaul to seize power in Rome. The ramifications of Avitus’s bid… show more.

I think this is the single best edition of Julius Caesar’s original compositions: the footnotes, maps, battle diagrams, and appendices offer a treasure trove of information for the Roman history buff without overwhelming the casual reader.

(I had a particular interest in Appendix C, on “Roman Calendars, Dates, and Time,” where I learned that the main reason winter operations rarely occurred in ancient warfare was the inability to feed their animals.)

The translations struck me as contemporary sounding yet never sacrifice accuracy for clarity. I recommend this book as a perfect gateway for the fan of ancient Rome to enter the realm of authentic ancient Roman literature.

This book is from the Asterix series and in general when you read Goscinny's books, you will not regret it, as it will inspire you with many ideas.

He was able to create humor from humans, animals, inanimate objects, and all elements of the story.

As for this book, I chose it because of the events taking place in Egypt, also because of the coherent plot, fast-flowing events, sense of humor, and new ideas. As usual in this type of book, there are some historical facts, but the general structure of the story is fictional.

The historical facts here are Queen Cleopatra VII, Julius Caesar, and the relationship between them, while the rest of the events are fictional and comic.

Dr. Crawford, a specialist in ancient history and religion, offers a detailed and readable account of the life and reign of Constantine's longest surviving son and successor in the mid-4th century (A.D. 324-361). Often criticized by ancient sources and modern scholars alike for not being as great a soldier as his father and for favoring Arian-leaning bishops, the author tries to rehabilitate the reputation of Constantius as a capable ruler in difficult times.

Browsing my shelves in preparation for this book list, this one in particular jogged my memory as an important influence on my own book, an influence so internalized that I completely forgot about and never cited it! I remedy that lapse here. 

My copy of the book is heavily underlined with lots of stars in the margin, so I know it was important. You can see from the title that the author is concerned with the same tension between money and empire, he as a historian and me as an economist.

Now that I have finished my own book, I’ll be rereading this early influence to engage with its argument more deeply and directly. 

Many histories of Rome end in the second century that period in which Edward Gibbon judged “the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous”. But there is a great deal of Roman history after that. Rome survived a great military crisis in the third century. The next generation of emperors based themselves near the frontiers to ward off future attacks. Machado’s extraordinary book tells the story of the City of Rome after the emperors had gone, returned into the hands of an aristocracy fascinated by its past but also committed to Roma Aeterna (Eternal Rome). Using statues and inscriptions and archaeology and a mass of little read ancient literature, Machado paints a vivid picture. Far from the new centres of power, the Roman aristocracy rebuilt, repaired, and steered the city through religious transformations, barbarian sacks, and beyond the fall of the western empire.

Dynasty is just a good historical read, one I enjoyed thoroughly. This is the place to go for a readable researched, thoroughly engaging story of the final collapse of the Republic under Caesar and how his heirs ushered in a new political system. The pivotal period where Octavian, adopted son of murdered Gaius Julius Caesar, survived in a cutthroat political and military arena and made himself Princeps, the first emperor, is just fascinating. The subsequent men and women of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and all of their political, and sometimes murderous, machinations come to life under Holland’s pen. An excellent choice for navigating imperial politics, often family politics.

A self-contained description of a war fought in Africa against an ambitious monarch, in which the Roman superpower struggles with an elusive enemy. Roman efforts are badly hampered by corrupt generals and Sallust, writing a generation later makes no attempt to conceal his contempt for the aristocratic establishment which happily pocketed Jugurtha's bribes. A book that reads well and is relevant today. Get the Oxford University Press edition, and get the Catiline conspiracy thrown in for free.

This book provides an exemplary hour-by-hour guide to what life was like for a citizen of Rome at the height of its power. I love that Angela not only gives us the high-society angle, bringing us into the lush gardens and sumptuous homes of Rome’s wealthy and powerful, but also the crowded apartments and streets that were home to the vast majority of the ancient city’s citizens. You walk alongside them, getting a ground-level view of the patterns of a normal day in all its mundane details, from clothing to food to labor to entertainment, rendered in fascinating prose.

The early history of the Goths is a complicated and controversial subject, with difficult sources and large gaps in our literary and archaeological evidence. Heather provides an excellent guide to those problems and how they might be resolved. His book is particularly valuable for those interested in the only major source actually written by a Goth, the Getica of Jordanes, and in how the Visigoths and Ostrogoths emerged as independent peoples. The dramatic events which Heather narrates include the first entrance of Gothic tribes into the Roman Empire, the Sack of Rome by Alaric in 410, and the creation of the original Visigothic kingdom in southern France, ending with the newly formed Ostrogoths poised to launch their conquest of Italy.