Mmf. That depends on what sort of period/area you're interested in, and what you're looking for in terms of general interest vs. in depth discussion. And how much dryness you're willing to tolerate.
For an overview of the Roman empire round about the first century CE, Martin Goodman's Rome and Jerusalem is useful from a cultural perspective, because it does the compare and contrast thing. I may have blogged it here in 2010, I think. Goodman also has a book in the Routledge Roman history series which is quite good - better than the others in the same series, at least by me.
David Mattingly, An Imperial Possession: Britain in the Roman empire is very good on Roman Britain, though can tend to dryness in places; Mattingly also has a book on North Africa - called Tripolitania - which does similar. He's been involved, so I'm told, in excavations in southern Libya and the Libyan desert survey, so he knows his stuff. You'll probably only find Tripolitania through a university library, though.
For an introduction to Roman Egypt, try Parsons' City of the Sharp-nosed Fishes, which is essentially based off the Oxyrhynchus papyri. For the Eastern Desert and its archaeology, read The Red Land - or dip in and out of it, at least. It's very archaeologically oriented, but there's some interesting stuff there. In addition to interesting anecdotes about getting jeeps stuck in the desert... There are also some various intro collections of papyri, which can be fun - they'll be in the biblio in the Parsons book, though, I think. And I do recommend the Parsons book, since it's a good, vivid read.
There are various biographies of the emperors, of course, most of which I haven't read because they mainly recapitulate the Roman historians/literature etc, with extra bits of archaeology and inscription and some analysis. The most recent Marcus Aurelius is supposed to be good. Likewise Birley's Septimius Severus - I can't remember if I ever read much of it, because Roman History is a long time ago. (Birley also did a Hadrian - he seems to be the biography guy. There's also a recent biography of Claudius by Barbara Levick which struck me as dry but tolerable. But I was reading it before an exam.)
If I were at home, where I have a box full of undergrad notes and reading lists, or if I had better idea of where your interests lie, I could go on further.
But seriously? Give me a period or topic, and I'll look out some titles for you. My education on these matters was, I am told, reasonably comprehensive...
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branchandroot
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Date: 2011-11-09 05:23 pm (UTC)For an overview of the Roman empire round about the first century CE, Martin Goodman's Rome and Jerusalem is useful from a cultural perspective, because it does the compare and contrast thing. I may have blogged it here in 2010, I think. Goodman also has a book in the Routledge Roman history series which is quite good - better than the others in the same series, at least by me.
David Mattingly, An Imperial Possession: Britain in the Roman empire is very good on Roman Britain, though can tend to dryness in places; Mattingly also has a book on North Africa - called Tripolitania - which does similar. He's been involved, so I'm told, in excavations in southern Libya and the Libyan desert survey, so he knows his stuff. You'll probably only find Tripolitania through a university library, though.
For an introduction to Roman Egypt, try Parsons' City of the Sharp-nosed Fishes, which is essentially based off the Oxyrhynchus papyri. For the Eastern Desert and its archaeology, read The Red Land - or dip in and out of it, at least. It's very archaeologically oriented, but there's some interesting stuff there. In addition to interesting anecdotes about getting jeeps stuck in the desert... There are also some various intro collections of papyri, which can be fun - they'll be in the biblio in the Parsons book, though, I think. And I do recommend the Parsons book, since it's a good, vivid read.
There are various biographies of the emperors, of course, most of which I haven't read because they mainly recapitulate the Roman historians/literature etc, with extra bits of archaeology and inscription and some analysis. The most recent Marcus Aurelius is supposed to be good. Likewise Birley's Septimius Severus - I can't remember if I ever read much of it, because Roman History is a long time ago. (Birley also did a Hadrian - he seems to be the biography guy. There's also a recent biography of Claudius by Barbara Levick which struck me as dry but tolerable. But I was reading it before an exam.)
If I were at home, where I have a box full of undergrad notes and reading lists, or if I had better idea of where your interests lie, I could go on further.
But seriously? Give me a period or topic, and I'll look out some titles for you. My education on these matters was, I am told, reasonably comprehensive...