Description: Michael Kulikowski takes readers into the political heart of imperial Rome, beginning with the reign of Hadrian, who visited the farthest reaches of his domain and created stable frontiers, and spanning to the decades after Constantine the Great, who overhauled the government, introduced a new state religion, and founded a second Rome.
Brief description: Michael Kulikowski is the author of Rome's Gothic Wars, Late Roman Spain and Its Cities, and The Triumph of Empire (Harvard). Kulikowski has appeared in a number of documentaries on the History Channel, including Barbarians Rising, Rome, and Criminal History: Rome, and writes frequently for the Wall Street Journal and London Review of Books. He is the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History and Classics at Pennsylvania State University.
Review Quotes: This is a wonderfully broad sweep of Roman history. It tells the fascinating story of imperial rule from the enigmatic Hadrian through the dozens of warlords and usurpers who fought for the throne in the third century AD, to the Christian emperors of the fourth--after the biggest religious and cultural revolution the world has ever seen.--Mary Beard, University of Cambridge