The Roads To Rome: A Journey Into Europes Past

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Brimming with life and drama, this is a magnificent journey into two thousand years of history, from the acclaimed and beloved historian of Europe '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, stitching together our histories and continuing to inspire our imaginations. 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. Catherine Fletcher shows how the roads - as channels of trade and travel, routes of conquest and creativity - 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, from Istanbul 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 of the greatest imperial networks ever built.

Reviews

Epic and witty ... Fletcher is a thoroughly enjoyable narrator because she peppers her learned prose with wry humour, first-person asides and comparisons between past and present ... The Roads to Rome is a nuanced and perceptive book that interrogates the stories that we tell ourselves about who we are -- Tobias Jones * Observer *
Roman roads run everywhere, and Fletcher has been on most of them ... It has been her labour of love to crisscross an entire continent ... Fletcher's book is an exemplar of history as travelogue. It presents a familiar panorama - of Europe since antiquity - but from an unfamiliar, even original perspective ... The roads themselves are Fletcher's stars: sources of prosperity but also danger, stages on which to compete for and assert status, vectors of destiny that take men from where they cannot stay to where they must go ... The camaraderie she generates with fellow travellers, dead as well as living, engages and inspires. -- Miles Pattenden * Literary Review *
Elegantly plotted It is no easy task to condense 25 centuries of history into 300 pages and Fletcher, whose area of expertise is Renaissance Europe, rises to the challenge For modern Grand Tourists, Fletchers book will provide an enjoyable distraction when the journey to Rome gets dull -- Patrick Kidd * The Times *
Fletcher has a knack for identifying the poignant and the picaresque, which keeps the book unpredictable and entertaining. Ms. Fletcher is a charming writer. There are plenty of memorable scenes and evocative images. -- Kyle Harper * Wall Street Journal *
Very readable ... these routes are almost a natural part of the landscape. The reader departs the book with a feeling that they have been there for an unimaginable time, travelled on by a cast of vivid characters. It is a compelling image, in an enjoyable book. -- Robert Wright * Financial Times *
[A] rich narrative of the long afterlife of Rome's roads -- Michael Prodger * New Statesman *
[A] terrifically researched, sweeping study into the idea (or conception) of the Roman road * Unseen Histories *
With verve and expertise, Catherine Fletcher has tramped the far-flung Roman roads of Europe and created a delightful, novel and authoritative history from the ground up. -- Judith Herrin * author of BYZANTIUM *
Past and present cleverly entwine in Catherine Fletchers erudite, entertaining and infinitely readable journey along the roads that stitch Europes history together. -- Helena Attlee * author of THE LAND WHERE LEMONS GROW *
This is history quite literally following in the footsteps of the past: covering and uncovering the ways in which the Roman road network has become part of the DNA of every society since. Its a magical and informative ode to the majesty and mystical power of the humble roadway. -- Michael Scott * Professor of Classics and Ancient History, University of Warwick *

Author Bio

Catherine Fletcher is a historian of Renaissance and early modern Europe and the author of several previous books, including most recently The Beauty and the Terror- An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance, which was a Book of the Year (2020) in The Times. Catherine is Professor of History at Manchester Metropolitan University and broadcasts regularly for the BBC.