Books for/about - rome

Wheelock's Latin, 6th Edition Revised (The Wheelock's Latin)

Publisher: Collins
Authors: Frederic M. Wheelock Richard A. LaFleur

ISBN: 0060784237
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Avg Cusomer Rating: 5
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Summary: GREAT BOOK
We used the later part of my Latin I 9th grade honors class. We 1st used the 5th edition. I liked this book so much that i bought it and am currently reading threw it again so i have a fresh review for next year. I hope any Latin student or reviewer will buy this book to study from. I will go back to this book to study for my AP exam next year

Summary: Terrific text -but difficult
The 6th edition hardcover is a handsome book, filled with huge amounts of information. The method employed in this book is different than other instructional texts; it presents you with a vast number of grammatical rules early on, and then forces you to translate. It is a baptism by fire, and can be pretty challenging.

However, the reading selections are delightful, many taken from Roman authors of the first century B.C. There is even some Horace to keep you on your toes.

One thing you will need to do, is get the answer key from Harpers, since not every exercise in the book has one. This wasn't a problem for me -I simply emailed the publisher and they sent me the answer key. I had it within 4 days. If the key was included in the text, it would be 100 pages longer at least.

If you are studying Latin, I also recommend the book "501 Latin Verbs" as another resource. If you are brand new to the language, you may want to start with the Cambridge Latin course, units 1 & 2, and then read the Wheelock's.

Summary: Wonderful
I bought this book to refresh my Latin knowledge so I could place higher in college classes, and was very pleased. Over the summer I did an exercise every day, and probably spared myself a year of Latin.

The exercises are straightforward yet informative, and the examples of Roman literature are well chosen. Even in chapter one you are translating Cicero and learning about Roman culture.

Do a chapter every few days, and before you know it you'll be able to read Latin. If you already know some Latin, this is a great refresher course.

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Eyewitness Top 10 Travel Guides: Rome (Eyewitness Travel Top 10)

Publisher: DK ADULT
Authors: DK Publishing

ISBN: 0789484374
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Avg Cusomer Rating: 5
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Summary: Excellent travel book
I recently visited Rome on a cultural trip with my school. This book really did an excellent job of letting me and my group know what to see and about as much information about the sites that we could have taken. While it gives a good overview of the sites, and gives a more in depth analysis of some of the bigger sites, it is not good for thorough study of the city. However, for 95% of the people purchasing such a book, this will not be a problem. I would really recommend this book to anyone who is going to Rome, or just wants to know a little bit more about the sites.

Summary: Well used and referenced!
We just returned from Rome and I can honestly say this book was worth every cent. The map in the back is very detailed, much more so than other books and hotel maps. The museum diagrams and photos were also very useful. The back flap of the cover works as a fantastic and useful bookmark. Good phrases and pronunciations, good symbols, metro and bus information was very helpful, and the photos were excellent. You see tourists of every corner of the world carrying this book. Only negative is that there wasn't information on how organized tours really aren't worth the money, unlike I found in a Rick Steves book after the fact. (By the way - if you are going to Rome, avoid almost every organized tour as they rush you through and you don't get to see everything - especially at the Vatican). I will buy from the same publisher next time I travel!!

Summary: Good for visual kinda guys and gals.
Pro: I am a visual kind of guy and 3D cross section pictures and diagrams helps a lot. Nice colorful pictures and nice recommended neighborhood walks. At home, it also serves as a nice coffee table book.

Con: The glossy heavy stock papers, though nice to look at is a bit heavy to put in your pockets and walk around with it. Also the hotel and restaurant sectiion needs a bit of bulking up.

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	Rome Sweet Home: Our Journey to Catholicism Publisher: Ignatius Press Authors: Scott Hahn Kimberly Hahn
ISBN: 0898704782 List Price: $14.95 Amazon Price: $9.72 Usually ships in 24 hours Buy this book from amazon.com or from amazon.co.uk	Avg Cusomer Rating: 5 Reviews: Summary: You probably should read this... If you hate Catholics or Catholicism, read this book for understanding. If you feel unfulfilled by your Christian faith, read this book to see what you're missing. If you are unsure of which Christian denomination you want to join, read this book to see how other non-Catholics have found truth in the Catholic Church. If you're considering becoming a Catholic or leaving the Church, read this book! It might help lead you to the truth. Rome Sweet Home is a touching testimonial of how two VERY anti-Catholic, bible-slinging Protestant seminaries (husband and wife) reluctantly opened themselves to, discovered, and finally accepted the Catholic Church as our Lord's original and apostolic Church on earth. This book is truly inspiring for cradle Catholics and converts alike. It portrays a realistic, thoughtful, and often difficult journey to the Catholic faith by two very intelligent people who had been solid in their Protestant convictions, and never in their lives EVER considered becoming Catholic. Each point of Catholicism that they previously contended is thoughtfully, and biblically researched and challenged to support how they came to change their innermost Protestant beliefs, even at the initial expense of career, marriage, and alienation from family and friends. Summary: beautiful This book is beautiful and awe-inspiring. It has made me appreciate my religion on a whole new level. As a cradle Catholic, I realize that I have been taking many things for granted. Mass is an amazing thing. There is a guaranteed miracle everyday! Anyone who reads this with an open mind and, more importantly, an open heart will soon find themselves reading his other books. Summary: Written Too Much Towards Evangelicals Although Scott's story is interesting, I had a hard time relating to it (even as a Protestant who is going through the process of converting to Catholicism). He assumes the reader has a thorough background in Protestant theology and will be familiar with the ins and outs of delicate biblical arguments. Each chapter is split, with 3/4 of the chapter being Scott's story and the last 1/4 being Kimberly's version. This can get confusing when trying to remember who is talking. Personally, not recommended. Summary:

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The Sack of Rome: How a Beautiful European Country with a Fabled History and a Storied Culture Was Taken Over by a Man Named Silvio Berlusconi

Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Authors: Alexander Stille

ISBN: 159420053X
List Price: $25.95
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Summary: Hopefully Not The Future of Democracy!
Silvio Berlusconi is Italy's richest man - the owner of its largest television and publishing empire, department stores, a national soccer team, and an insurance and financial services company. In the early 1990's he joined them together into a political machine to elect both a number of candidates to Parliament and himself to Prime Minister. Advertising executives contacted the companies that bought ads on his channels, his employee stockbrokers and insurance agents set to turning clients into supporters, the personnel department of his TV advertising company selected over 100 of its top salesmen to be candidates for parliament (they were also required to buy a special kit explaining his new party's program, as well as lessons on how to speak in public and on TV), and his TV media experts conducted focus groups to hone Berlusconi's message.

Another important act was starting thousands of "Go, Italy" clubs (the favorite chant of his soccer team fans) to "promote values of freedom and democracy.

Prior to initiating his political run Berlusconi had been a night-club singer in college, and then a real-estate developer. Bribes and shady deals (eg. promise that a development would only reach five stories in height, then hire the enforcement officer and immediately build out to eight; commission a biased environment report from supposedly disinterested parties; use a double-dealing attorney to take advantage of an absent young and distraught inheritor by
convincing her that low-ball amounts were appropriate and using a stock-swindle as payment; using political connections to reroute noisy airline landing paths from his holdings). In addition, his main aide was a strong and long-time Mafia connection.

Berlusconi's campaign was deliberately vague - simply promising work, freedom, individualism, generosity, and prosperity (borrowing from both opposing parties). His focus was not on programs, but personality - thus, his "self-made" life story was emphasized. His TV programs (and campaign) were both aimed at the lesser educated. Berlusconi parroted Reagan's "Morning in America" theme, while railing at his enemies ("Communists, using Nazi propaganda techniques" - repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth), while doing so himself with preposterous point (eg. his "enemies" enjoy a media monopoly and use it against him - Stille offer documentation that this was not true; there was no conflict between his public and private roles; the many criminal investigations of him turned up nothing). Another Berlusconi tenet was to make up quotations and attribute them to renowned authorities in an effort to convince people.

One of Berlusconi's first acts after being elected was to replace the boards and heads of the rival government TV networks - so much for avoiding conflict of interest! Investigations into him were thwarted by dirty tricks, including planted evidence against his prosecutors.

In 2004, Berlusconi's run as P.M. ended after a close election (he claimed fraud, in spite of being in charge of it). Economic growth under his administration was poor, though he did save his media and financial empires from negative legislation and derailed his criminal prosecution.

The "bad news" is that Stille sees parallels between Italy and Thailand (its president is also the countries richest man and a large media owner), Russia (Putin has gained control over virtually all of Russia's TV), and the U.S. (Bush II doing away with restrictions on media concentration and paying for media coverage, the aggressive, partisan style of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, et al. Hopefully not.

My only complaint is that often the material becomes too detailed - especially for an American reader not familiar with Italy.

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The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Authors: Peter Heather

ISBN: 0195159543
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Avg Cusomer Rating: 5
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Summary: Excelsior!

Heather tells the complex story of the Fall of the Roman Empire in a writing style so accessible that you feel like he is talking to you.

He clearly presents his thesis (oversimplification: there was no "decline". There was a loss in revenue when North Africa was lost. Barbarians eroded the western empire and a disasterous armada ... to get Africa back... nailed the coffin) so that lay people can understand it. When he presents evidence he also notes what is missing from the evidence, or how reliable/unreliable it might be. This way, we know how he came to his conclusion, leaving the door open for future discoveries.

Heather, the editor and publisher (Oxford University Press) have done their team work. The maps are excellent and they are placed with the text they illustrate. There are referals to a previous pages, something you rarely see since books are routinely published in such haste that this is not possible. The biographies (of people and peoples) in the back help you keep the players straight.

Heather says a full study of what happened in the provinces is worth another book. I hope Heather writes it!

Summary: A brilliant account of the last hundred years of the Western Roman Empire
This magnificent book is accessible to the history buff or general reader and provides an extensive, logical and easy to read account of all that went wrong in the last hundred years of the Western Roman Empire. Mr. Heather's extensive research combined with attention to detail has produced a brilliant, well argued revisionist account of why the Empire eventually fell to the barbarians.

Essentially the volume of the various incursions of barbarians from the late 4th century AD was too much for the Western Empire to sustain and gradually wore it down. Heather is able to clarify the external and internal reasons why the Empire was worn down by the barbarians. The Empire was still prosperous with an army but it was not enough to withstand the series of invasions. Heather provides a good explanation of why the Western Roman Empire army was much less formidable after the defeat at Hadrianople.

From reading Gibbon l thought that Stilicho was the last great General of the Western Roman Empire, not so, l enjoyed the account of the life of the general and consul Flavius Aetius. Heather is able to transport the reader back in time and bring ancient persons back to life so l was able to imagine the political and social environment they lived in. Mr. Heather also explains why the end of the Western Roman Empire was not a certain event and how it could have remained viable. The final nail in the coffin was the failed attempt to invade North Africa in 468 AD to regain land lost to the Vandals.

The author's last paragraph in the book is brilliant and challenging but l will not reveal it to spoil the effect for anybody else.

Summary: A NO-BRAINER, FIVE-STAR, READ-IT-NOW NARRATIVE
Peter Heather's THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE is an exciting book because it peels away the pasted-on theories of the fall of the Roman Empire and replaces them with a logical, coherent theory of what happened. For some reason, known only to my shrink, I am a fan of the Roman Empire. And so, while reading THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, I kept rooting for the Romans to win, hoping that the conclusion might turn out differently and the Empire would survive. But, alas, it did not. Still, it's that kind of book: it reads like a novel, with clear, easy-to-read prose. The next time you travel to Hungary think of Attila the Hun whose fierce, stretched-skull Huns, wielding deadly bows that could pierce armor from horseback a hundred-plus yards distant, smacked into the Germanic tribes to the west and sent them carooming like billiard balls across the Roman frontier. I won't spoil any more of the plot for you because this well-researched and entertaining book deserves your full ruminations. (There are 16 maps and the many footnotes are tucked away in the end papers, out of sight.) THE FALL is a no-brainer, five-star, read-it-now narrative that makes the political, economic, military and social aspects of the fourth and fifth centuries seem like they happened yesterday, and that the Romans of these times, whose orderly world was slowly unraveling into a kind of chaotic darkness, were people much like you and I, struggling to save their way of life in vexing, dangerous times.

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	Atticus of Rome, 30 B.C. (The Life and Times Series) Publisher: Scholastic Inc. Authors: Barry Denenberg
ISBN: 0439524539 List Price: $10.95 Amazon Price: $8.98 Usually ships in 1 to 3 weeks Buy this book from amazon.com or from amazon.co.uk	Avg Cusomer Rating: 1 Reviews: Summary: A Pandora's Box of problems This novel is one of two that Mr. Denenberg has written for this series. Having read and reviewed `Maia of Thebes,' I wanted to read these other two works, as possible inclusions for my own home-schooled children, as we study this year Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. This review is about both `Pandora of Athens,' and `Atticus of Rome.' While Ms. Turner's book, (Maia) set in Ancient Egypt, could easily be used as a `read-aloud' for younger elementary age children studying this early civilization, neither of Mr. D's books in this same series would, in this reviewer's opinion, even be suitable for pre-adolescents, let alone Elementary age readers. In both of these books from the "Life and Times" series, (published by Scholastic) Mr. Denenberg's penchant for including vile scenarios (the practice of crucifixion, depictions of blood- lust and graphic yet glamorized descriptions of gladiatorial battles in `Atticus'), suggestive prose (prurient verbal descriptions of the female anatomy and allusions to the onset of menses in `Pandora') and in both novels, tantalizing glimpses of concepts re: to pagan attitudes (civic and religious worship of the time) at odds with a civilized/Christian society/worldview, are things which I believe most HS parents would find extremely offensive; or at the very least, in extremely poor taste, (to put it mildly). My wife (an Elementary Ed. Teacher) was disgusted by my reading aloud some of Denenberg's prose in `Pandora.' She teaches fourth grade in an inner-city school, and clearly told me that, (while acknowledging that she has daily to deal with issues such as: knives toted by students, `in-your-face' attitude, early puberty among the `children of color,' and the beginnings of sexual banter of the most vile sort from same) she would NEVER choose these books, if a choice had to be made for supplemental reading in HER classroom. My own interest in the possibility that these books would make easy a set of `readers' to supplement my HS task has been completely disillusioned by these books of Mr. Denenberg. However, to be fair, I will say that, for an unusually mature sixth grader on up, the second of these books would be just the sort of thing that a `real boy' would find fascinating, specifically because of the blood, guts, and intrigue in `Atticus,' which is the far better written, constructed, and paced of the two books. Having said that, nevertheless, I found both of Mr. Denenberg's offerings to be totally unsuited for young children. I give them a wide berth, therefore, and offer only one star for the level of writing alone in `Atticus.' I'd rather read D'Aulaire's marvelous account of the real Pandora's BOX, (not jar, as Denenberg erroneously has Socrates narrate!) than this tawdry attempt at a Grecian Harlequin romance, rather than historical fiction. Summary: It saddened me It was a great book that I really enjoyed, until the end which ruined everything. Summary: cool I really liked this book when i read it. It was a great book. Summary:

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Rick Steves' Rome 2006 (Rick Steves' Rome)

Publisher: Avalon Travel Publishing, Rick Steves
Authors: Rick Steves Gene Openshaw

ISBN: 1566917328
List Price: $17.95
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Avg Cusomer Rating: 4
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Summary: Rick Steves Rome
Mr. Steves Rome tour guide is, like most of his other books very useful. I always want to know where to stay and have that arranged before I arrive in a city. Rick's useful information helps with that. He has very good ideas for arranging a tour of the city and helps with places to eat.

Summary: Travel essential
I took this book everywhere in Rome and it was worth it! The tips on best times to visit museums/sites helped me to save time and plan ahead. I was carrying this book with me into Rick's recommended restaurants and I was treated like a queen.

Summary: Rick Steves' Rome
While there are literally dozens of Rome guides, Rick Steves provides more than the highlights of Rome's vast array of neighborhoods, museums, antiquities, and cathedrals. His insider tips are just what the traveler needs to avoid lines, take great walks, and organize your time. As an experienced traveler, I thought the book might be too basic, but greatly enjoyed his writing style and organization. His tips on neighborhood restaurants is perfect for those who want to combine museum/cathedral hopping with a convenient, untouristy meal. I look forward to using Rick's guides for other cities.

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Rome, Inc.: The Rise and Fall of the First Multinational Corporation (Enterprise)

Publisher: W. W. Norton
Authors: Stanley Bing

ISBN: 0393060268
List Price: $23.95
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Avg Cusomer Rating: 3
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Summary: Mildly Entertaining, No Lasting Value
Rome, Inc., by Stanley Bing is a quick 200 page dose of Roman history. It discuses the founding, rise and eventual decline of the empire in short breezy chapters with fleeting references to current corporate and management culture. There are some amusing parallels drawn but nothing earth shattering. This volume won't be creating any managers or CEOs in a hurry; at best, it can perhaps just about sustain you on your next flight from LA to NY.

Summary: Very witty analysis of the Roman Empire
Like another reviewer, I usually do not find Stanley Bing's writing interesting. I find his writing more of inside jokes and tending toward rambling proses.

Having said that, I really enjoyed his latest endeavor, this time about the Roman Empire. Instead of the usual historical perspective, he draws analogy from the empire's rise and fall to today's businesses, casting new light on the history. A funny and insightful book.

Summary: Der Bingle Strikes Again
I have been reading this guy's stuff since the old Esquire column which was frequently tear-inducing. With ROME, INC. Herr Bing delivers the goods once again, with a clever, hilarious and (gasp!) instructive walk through Roman history, crisply analogized with the crushing corporate culture of modern-day America. The quintessential bi-coastal airplane book: take with two fingers of glenfidditch over ice for maximum absorption.

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