Rubicon

Really an excellent book. Holland brings to life the last days of the Republic in a way that for me certainly created a page turner of a story. It has all the excitement and intrigue of a well written novel.

An excellent read that traces the decline and fall of the Republic in a most engaging manner. I am fairly cognizant of the history of Rome but found a goodly amount of new information throughout the book. No real author-related weaknesses in the story: a few of the stranger-than-fiction passages did, however, effect some weakness in my knees. Buy it; read it; and marvel at the parallels between the collapse of the Roman Republic and the impending fall of the American Dream. The former was caused by generals whereas the latter is being destroyed by the rather deranged GOP. Both can be called "inside jobs".

One of the best accounts of the Roman republic. The similarities of Roman politics, imperialism, and corrupt power to that of the US over the last 100 years are uncanny. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), it all came to an end. Concentrated Power and greed is a shaky foundation for a sustainable society.

Holland's book has given human dimensions to the history of the Roman Republic and its transformation into the Principate. It is an expertly written tale with all the drama and character of a well wrought fiction and at the same time solidly based on thorough historical knowledge. I found it compelling and couldn't put it down until I had finished the book.

Excellent coverage on the fall of Republican Rome. I intitally thought this book was more of a "Gibbon style" narrative, but was pleasantly surprised to find it much more richly entertaining and readable.

I'm only recently coming around to non-fiction, but this guy has my attention right from the start. Very readable; you feel like you're getting a description of everyday events, not disjointed from one historical event to another.

Very well written but (paradoxically) somewhat hard to follow. There are so many characters, alliances, places and battles, that it's hard to keep it all straight, especially when you have to put the book down for a couple of days. I think it tried to cover too long a period of time. The timeline at the end was helpful; a cast of characters would have been great.

All the visceral guts and glory of Roman pre-Empire politics, written in an eloquent and enjoyable story. I would recommend it to anyone that wants to start learning about the Republican era of Rome.

Begins well, gets however pretty well mired in irrelevant details of the antics and wrong-doings of secondary characters. Solid on Cato. Crassus and Cicero, with merely a sketchy presentation of J.Caesar's early career. On the other hand, the final third is an astonishing masterpiece with its piecemeal and insightful description of the power struggles that led to the demise of the Republic. I'm no specialist on the subject so what scholarly issues he raises I can't appraise, but it's the kind of problems and questions he raises that made me read the whole book once more.

If you want that sweet combination of history and entertainment, read this book.

I bought it on the store several years ago and just finished reading it for the third time.
Each time it's been superbly entertaining. Each time I've learned something.

Be sure not to overlook Sulla: Hmmm.. I've got six legions, he has zero. Me, six, him zero. Hmmmm.
And was it Julius Caesar's red boots that did him in?

This book leaves me with all sorts of questions ripe in my mind. Did Romes decision to destroy Carthage open the ultimate path to destruction? Would the US eliminating Russia as a rival have a similar impact? Is it inevitable that success carries the seeds of its fall? Beyond all this it's just a compelling story.

The problem with narrative history of Rome is that it was a long time ago. The narrative drive sometimes gets slowed up by that. This is a fine book, but really not as rip-roaring as I thought it would be.

The book is overloaded with generalizing, personifying, and hyperbole, which simplifies and obscures the history. Some random examples: the Republic was exhausted and preoccupied; everyone knew; a ragbag of cities presumed; resentments seethed; the Romans judged; the plebians refused; community was cherished; peers wondered; Cato's ghost haunted the conscience of Rome. I felt frustrated that explanations and reasoning were being hidden from me.

The subject matter is interesting; however, the writing style is horrible. It reminds me of the pompous way I used to write when I was a freshman in high school and didn't know better. It is a tedious read and I would find myself getting angry as I read through this book. What kind of editor would let this schlock get printed?

After reading Mary Beard's outstanding book "SPQR," I checked her bibliography for additional sources and found the following comment: "Tom Holland’s 'Rubicon' is an excellent popular history." Although I admire Professor Beard and highly recommend her books, I cannot agree with her appraisal of Holland's "Rubicon." Unlike Beard, whose insightful narrative carefully follows the historical record, Holland's prose is littered with painfully ridiculous clichés and absurd generalizations, and many of his assertions are unsupported by his footnotes. Overall, Holland's writing style is pretentious, turgid and shallow. Holland's historical narrative does not rise to the level of Mary Beard or Edward Gibbon - not even close.

After finishing Tom Holland's 'Rubicon', one thing is certain; he's a fine writer. His prose is flowing and even entertaining. The book is a quick read and very accessible to any reader. In fact, I would recommend it to anyone who has never picked up a history book and is easily bored by the past. Tom Holland is for them.

But I cannot recommend this work to anyone who reads history regularly. Tom Holland is not a historian or a scholar. That by itself is not a problem. Several of the great works of history in recent decades have been written by non-historians. Rick Atkinson (An Army at Dawn) and David Halberstam (The Best and the Brightest) are both news reporters. The first won a Pulitzer, the second wrote one of the most important books on Vietnam. John Julius Norwich (Byzantium: The Early Centuries; Byzantium: The Apogee; Byzantium: The Decline and Fall), an English lord with no historical training, managed to produce the definitive history on the Byzantine Empire. So Tom Holland's background of a degree in English and an author of fantasy/horror novels does not necessarily preclude him from writing a great work of history. But 'Rubicon' isn't one.

Holland's book is a series of sweeping generalizations and unfounded conclusions. He makes declarative statements that seem to have no basis in historic record of even common sense. In chapter six he writes, "No Roman ever bothered striking at an enemy he did not fear." Huh? What? Not one Roman at any level at any point in his life did that? How about the Roman government, which as a matter of course frequently expanded its borders as a preventative measure against future invaders, and not in the face of a extant enemy they feared? And I'm sure at some point some Roman gangster or criminal ring leader struck out at a rival opponent who they didn't actively "fear". Holland's book is filled with nonsensical statements like this, telling us how all Romans felt and acted, without any citation whatsoever. It's like he's making up some of it.

I read history. I've read many wonderful books written by historians and non-historians. I've read works that are scholarly, and works that are general histories drawing on the scholarship of others. In my opinion 'Rubicon' treats history like a pulp movie, and its light nature mixed with seemingly unfounded conclusions led me to struggle with finishing it.

If you don't usually read history books, give 'Rubicon' a read. But if you enjoy the works of Doris Kearns Goodwin or John Keegan, you'll find Tom Holland's work to be lacking.

Mr. Holland has a rare talent of framing history in the form of a good story. In this work, he points out how comparisons of America with the Roman Empire has become cliché. But following the story of a republic that becomes an empire as if by accident and must adjust to the demands of keeping the world at peace, it is hard not to see the similarities. But how strong are those similarities? Mr. Holland does well not to push answers on us but gives us the story without preachy commentary and lets the reader decide those answers. Overall, an enjoyable read that entertains and educates in a way that makes us think about the age old questions with which we still struggle. Highly recommended.