The Roads To Rome: A History

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Brimming with life and drama, this is the first book to explore two thousand years of European history through one of the most important imperial networks ever built 'All roads lead to Rome.' It's a medieval proverb, but it's also true- today's European roads still follow the networks of the ancient empire and continue to grip our modern imaginations as a physical manifestation of Rome's 'extraordinary greatness'. Over the two thousand years since they were first built, the roads have been walked by crusaders and pilgrims, liberators and dictators, but also by tourists and writers, refugees and artists. As channels of trade and travel, and routes for conquest and creativity, Catherine Fletcher shows how the roads forever transformed the cultures, and intertwined the fates, of a vast panoply of people across Europe and beyond. The Roads to Rome is a magnificent journey into a past that remains intimately connected to our present. Travelling from Scotland to Cadiz to Istanbul and back to Rome, we meander and march through a series of nations and empires that have risen and fallen. Along the way, we encounter spies and bandits, scheming innkeepers, a Byzantine noblewoman on the run, young aristocrats on their Grand Tour, a conquering Napoleon, Keats and the Shelleys, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, and even Mussolini on his motorbike. Reflecting on his own walk on the Appian Way, Charles Dickens observed that here is 'a history in every stone that strews the ground.' Based on outstanding original research, and brimming with life and drama, this is the first book to explore two thousand years of history through one the greatest imperial networks ever built.

Reviews

In her magnificently imagined and vividly composed book, Catherine Fletcher gives new meaning to the word journeyman (these days journeyperson). Among her pages, we journey the thousands of miles of Roman roads from 500 BCE to the present and are never made timeless or homeless. Fletcher offers us justification for an infinity of plannable holidays or long hours of cosy reading at home. All readers should direct themselves to her Romes. -- Richard Bosworth * author of MUSSOLINI'S ITALY *
Brilliant and gripping, here is the full true Renaissance in a history of compelling originality and freshness -- Simon Sebag Montefiore on The Beauty and the Terror
Terrifying and fascinating * Sunday Times on The Beauty and the Terror *
Exactly the alternative history you might wish for * Daily Telegraph on The Beauty and the Terror *

Author Bio

Catherine Fletcher is a historian of Renaissance and early modern Europe. Her previous books include The Black Prince of Florence- The Spectacular Life and Treacherous World of Alessandro de' Medici and The Divorce of Henry VIII- The Untold Story. Catherine is Professor of History at Manchester Metropolitan University and broadcasts regularly for the BBC.