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Two hundred years of Roman imperial politics and power brought to life in an action-packed narrative

About the Author

Michael Kulikowski is Professor of History and Classics at Penn State University, where his research and writing ranges widely across ancient and early medieval history. He is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books. His books include Rome's Gothic Wars, described by Bryn Mawr Classical Review as 'exceptional' and by Military History Review as 'breezy and animated, yet authoritative'.

Reviews

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, Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge*

A genuinely bracing and innovative history of Rome for a general audience.
*TLS*

This was an era of great change, and Mr. Kulikowski is an excellent and insightful guide to the process
*Wall Street Journal*

Insightful, coherent and articulate.
*BBC History Magazine*

Demonstrates impressive mastery of a vast and complex field
*Australian Book Review*

A breezy and animated, yet authorative look at this remarkable time ... sure to be of interest to anybody with a taste in character-driven history.
*Military History Review*

A fascinating account showing just what it was like to be a Roman emperor - the endless court politics, the shock of outside events, the need to bring in reforms, and, above all, the constant struggle to stay alive and keep your place on the throne.
*Jerry Toner, Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge*

Kulikowski's lucid narrative deftly navigates one of the most tangled periods of Roman imperial history. Triumphing over treacherous source material, he shows Rome's third century nightmare as part of a sequence of events that convulsed the whole of Eurasia. Imperial Triumph is a dramatic and a revealing history of cataclysm and recovery.
*Greg Woolf, Director, Institute of Classical Studies, University of London*

Kulikowski's great triumph is to present, in an engaging and lively manner, a new historical narrative with a clear, distinctive line of interpretation for the crucial and complex era of transformation from the world of the high empire to late antiquity.
*R. W. Benet Salway, University College London*

A lively, accessible, up-to-date account of the ancient world during the critical period of Rome's domination of her powerful and diverse empire.
*Alan Bowman, Formerly Camden Professor of Ancient History, University of Oxford*

Kulikowski provides an energizing depiction of the Roman Empire at its height. His light prose style masks a deep engagement with the period and the problems posed to the Empire from within and beyond its borders.
*Hugh Elton, Trent University*

An impressive book with an incisive fresh exposition of how Rome's rulers triumphantly remade their empire in response to relentless pressures over two-and-a-half centuries. A page-turner set on a vast physical canvas stretching from Scotland to Ethiopia and China.
*Richard Talbert, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill*