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Pompeii is the most famous archaeological site in the world, visited by more than two million people each year. Yet it is also one of the most puzzling, with an intriguing and sometimes violent history, from the sixth century BCE to the present day.
Destroyed by Vesuvius in 79 CE, the ruins of Pompeii offer the best evidence we have of life in the Roman Empire. But the eruptions are only part of the story. In The Fires of Vesuvius, acclaimed historian Mary Beard makes sense of the remains. She explores what kind of town it was―more like Calcutta or the Costa del Sol?―and what it can tell us about “ordinary†life there. From sex to politics, food to religion, slavery to literacy, Beard offers us the big picture even as she takes us close enough to the past to smell the bad breath and see the intestinal tapeworms of the inhabitants of the lost city. She resurrects the Temple of Isis as a testament to ancient multiculturalism. At the Suburban Baths we go from communal bathing to hygiene to erotica.
Recently, Pompeii has been a focus of pleasure and loss from Pink Floyd’s memorable rock concert to Primo Levi’s elegy on the victims. But Pompeii still does not give up its secrets quite as easily as it may seem. This book shows us how much more and less there is to Pompeii than a city frozen in time as it went about its business on 24 August 79.
Read The Fires of Vesuvius Pompeii Lost and Found Mary Beard Books
"Great for those interested in the history of Pompeii. Prof. Mary Beard has a way of writing that draws people into the history she is presenting. She writes in a form that everyone, from professional to layman, can enjoy and understand. This book is a gem and a must for any home library."
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Tags : The Fires of Vesuvius Pompeii Lost and Found (9780674045866) Mary Beard Books,Mary Beard,The Fires of Vesuvius Pompeii Lost and Found,Belknap Press An Imprint of Harvard University Press,0674045866,Ancient - Rome,Archaeology,Pompeii (Extinct city),Pompeii (Extinct city) - Religious life and customs,Pompeii (Extinct city) - Social conditions,Pompeii (Extinct city) - Social life and customs,ANCIENT ROME - HISTORY,General Adult,HISTORY / Ancient / Rome,History,History - General History,History/World,History World,Italy,Non-Fiction,ROMAN ARCHAEOLOGY,SOCIAL SCIENCE / Archaeology,UNIVERSITY PRESS,United States
The Fires of Vesuvius Pompeii Lost and Found Mary Beard Books Reviews :
The Fires of Vesuvius Pompeii Lost and Found Mary Beard Books Reviews
- I bought this book about a month before a planned trip to southern Italy and a visit to Pompeii, so this is a review both of the book itself and the subsequence experience of visiting the actual site.
The book is excellent. This isn't an dry academic treatise, but a beautifully written and very engaging account of life in Roman times, as preserved in the provincial town of Pompeii. The introduction along makes it worth buying the book - it vividly describes what actually happened in 79 AD when Vesuvius blew, and how the town was subsequently looted, rediscovered, and bombed by the Allies in WWII. She debunks many myths and explains all the dicks and erotica that so amused my daughters when they visited. Beard can be very funny.
I visited Pompeii in summer, 2015, and Beard was a good guide. In the book she's careful not to be too critical of the state of preservation of Pompeii, but it's not hard to read between the lines, and the evidence when you visit is shocking. The town is falling apart - many of the frescoes have faded completely, the wear-and-tear of millions of tourists is obvious, and many buildings are visibly collapsing. Pompeii is still incredibly impressive, especially the side streets with their wheel rutted roads and elegant buildings, but the dilapidation is glaring. I'd plan to arrive as early as possible to avoid crowds, and to move away from the main entrance area to better appreciate the size and scale of the town. We had a guide who'd been accompanying visitors for over 35 years (a guide is recommended, the town is confusing at ground-level). - This terrific and absorbing book discusses all aspects of life in Pompeii before the eruption in 79 CE. Beard synthesizes what we know of family life, making a living, entertainment, worship, ceremony, religion, civic life, etc.
As an interested amateur, I have no basis for judging her conclusions, but I find them convincing if only because she is so cautious she is skeptical about a lot of the claims made by other scholars based on what she says is scant or non-existent evidence. When she speculates, she makes explicit that is what she is doing, and when we don't know and can only guess, she says so clearly. Another reviewer was disappointed that she rejects some of the tales told by guides, but to me her insistence on relying only on the evidence or lack thereof is one of the great virtues of the book.
The book is clearly written and entirely accessible to a non-scholar. Beard sometimes resorts to English demotic to great and occasionally shocking effect, both for translations and for her own observations. It is well-illustrated with both color plates and black-and-white illustrations placed in close proximity to the accompanying text and with helpful captions. (I wished on occasion that the illustrations were larger so that I could see better the detail she describes, and that cross-references to illustrations were by page number rather than illustration number.)
In short, this book is among the very best popular histories (I don't intend that adjective to be denigrating, rather an acknowledgment of the book's broad appeal beyond academia) I've ever read. - I'm almost through reading this book and feel like I have visited Pompeii. Mary Beard, with out becoming dry or boring, includes incredible details about what has been found in the remains of this ancient city and what it tells us about the people who lived there. I have always been fascinated by Pompeii and Roman archeology, and hoped to visit Pompeii some day. That may not happen, but this book has made me feel like I've been through the ruins with an excellent guide. A good additional Pompeii resource is Dr. Stephen Tuck's Teaching Company DVD lecture series on Pompeii. He includes many photographs and videos.
- Before I traveled to Italy last week, I wanted to find a good book on Pompeii, as I knew very little about it. Beard's book hit the spot. I was able to read the majority of it on the plane ride over, and it helped me to better understand the lifestyle of the people who lived there, who really were a slice of typical Roman life during the first century. It made me appreciate my visit much more, and though I never had a chance to see a tenth of everything covered in this book (during my short visit), I am glad I had a chance to read this. Very readable, is dry in some spots but overall it really keeps moving. And the topic is just fascinating. I recommend this for those who plan to visit this lost and found city.
- Great for those interested in the history of Pompeii. Prof. Mary Beard has a way of writing that draws people into the history she is presenting. She writes in a form that everyone, from professional to layman, can enjoy and understand. This book is a gem and a must for any home library.
- My own area of research in forensic archaeology (which in this case focuses primarily on the physical effects of the Vesuvian surge clouds) has brought me up close and personal with Pompeii and Herculaneum. Yet, even to someone who works professionally in the ruins, Mary Beard's wonderful book has many new lessons to teach.
"The Fires of Vesuvius Pompeii Lost and Found," has a rare quality of being accessible to an intelligent Junior High School student with an interest in the subject - yet, simultaneously it is so full of new details about individual homes and public buildings as to be endlessly fascinating even to professional scientists and classicists already quite familiar with the cities of Vesuvius.
- - Charles Pellegrino - Better than a trip to crowded and hot Pompeii and I have been there 7 times in 30 years. I had to wait to truly understand for Mary Beard to write this book and with humor I'd like to add. Loved it and the author's unfiltered remarks.
