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£14.99
Published
9 September 2025
Hardback
9781913083830
Ebook
9781913083847
Press Release
Coming soon.
By Ross King:

 

At its greatest extent, the Roman Empire encompassed more than twenty-five modern-day countries. It has shaped our politics and laws, language and numerals, calendars and architecture. But what was Rome, who were the Romans and why ultimately did the empire fall?

Ranging across more than a thousand years, from the foundation myths of Romulus and Remus to the barbarian
invasions, Ross King vividly explores the lives of murderous emperors, rebellious women, remarkable thinkers, fugitive slaves and persecuted Christians.

Old Street Publishing The Shortest History of Ancient Rome

At its greatest extent, the Roman Empire encompassed more than twenty-five modern-day countries. It has shaped our politics and laws, language and numerals, calendars and architecture. But what was Rome, who were the Romans and why ultimately did the empire fall?

Ranging across more than a thousand years, from the foundation myths of Romulus and Remus to the barbarian
invasions, Ross King vividly explores the lives of murderous emperors, rebellious women, remarkable thinkers, fugitive slaves and persecuted Christians.

 14.99
 
 

'King’s supreme ability is to imagine himself into the past… The scope of his knowledge is staggering'
—John Carey, Sunday Times

 
 
  • ‘King is that ideal friend, stimulating rather than intimidating, who has seen everything, and doesn’t mind doing it again with you… With his customary light but learned touch, King has performed a miracle of compression’
    —James Owen, The Oldie on The Shortest History of Italy
  • 'A handbook both informative and entertaining … In fact-rich chapters he covers topics as broad as the fall of the Roman empire, Garibaldi and the Risorgimento, the lure of Mussolini and the fractured politics of the postwar years'
    —Michael Prodger, New Statesman on The Shortest History of Italy
  • 'Few have as much insight into the history of Italy as the author of Brunelleschi's Dome, and in The Shortest History of Italy Ross King offers a masterful and perceptive account of Italian virtues – and sins – from the Romans to Berlusconi… An ideal handbook for anyone who loves Italy and wants to dig a little deeper into the past'
    —Richard Owen, author of D.H. Lawrence in Italy
  • 'A rollicking introduction to the history of a country that, until barely 150 years ago, was not one. Vibrant, admirably clear and often wryly amusing … a splendid achievement’
    —John Hooper on The Shortest History of Italy
  • 'A remarkably readable whirlwind tour of Italian history over the millennia, replete with conquerors, emperors, slaves, popes, assorted invaders, and filled with juicy historical nuggets. There’s nothing quite like it'
    —David Kertzer, Pulitzer-prize-winning author of The Pope and Mussolini and The Pope at War
  • 'History exerts a force in Italy that is multifaceted and ambiguous, especially to the outsider – but The Shortest History of Italy helps to render the country coherent'
    —Kurt Johnson, The Saturday Paper
 
 
Ross King

Ross King is the author of many bestselling and acclaimed books about Italy, including The Shortest History of Italy, The Bookseller of Florence, Brunelleschi’s Dome and Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling. He lives near Oxford.