Rome and Persia- The Seven Hundred Year Rivalry by Adrian Goldsworthy
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Web ID: 17302248Good read even if it drifted a bit
I have read several of Goldsworthy’s historical books and find them entertaining and educational: Caesar, Augustus, Philip and Alexander, the Fall of Carthage. This particular one was is focused on the relationship between Rome and the Parthians/Persians, but Goldsworthy spends a lot of time covering other relationships. He probably felt he needed to to put events in context, but I felt like this weakened the flow and focus. But it was still and enjoyable read and now I want to visit the Gorgan Wall which I never knew existed.
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Thought Provoking With A Few Flaws
Adrian Goldsworthy’s return to Roman history may have been partly inspired by his previous book about Philip and Alexander and their conquest of Persia. We often forget that Persia (then known as Parthia) soon resumed an independent existence after Alexander’s death and that it was never conquered by either the Roman Republic or the Roman or Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empires. There were periods of warfare but for much of the seven hundred years that Goldsworthy covered there was an uneasy co-existence that lasted until the seventh century AD. Their final all-out conflict resulted in wrecking both powers and opening the way for the Arab conquests that swallowed Persia and almost destroyed the Eastern Roman Empire. Co-existence seemed to me to be his theme, the fact that two superpowers can tolerate each other as long as there is a reasonable balance of power. Rome And Persia had some flaws. It was lacking in detail at times, mostly due to the fact that the sources for much of the era are sparse, and I felt Goldsworthy sometimes belabored the obvious and repeated his points. I am still going to give it four stars because it is on a subject that has been neglected and it is a timely reminder that rival nations (the US and China, Israel and the Palestinians) must sometimes compromise and accept each other rather than strive for domination.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com