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twinkiebear's review
informative
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
4.0
Vel skrifuð og stútfull af upplýsingum og áhugaverðum uppákomum.
emiann2023's review against another edition
5.0
5*
A detailed, epic look at the destruction of an Empire that few today know about. Definitely a detailed read, but an informative one.
A detailed, epic look at the destruction of an Empire that few today know about. Definitely a detailed read, but an informative one.
scipio_africanus's review against another edition
4.0
A great overview of Carthaginian culture, religion, and military campaigns. The Punic wars aren't covered in great detail, and for that i recommend the book by B.H. Liddel Hart on Scipio Africanus or Polybius' Histories. All around interesting read tho and I'm glad I read it. Great for people new to this segment of history, may be a bit boring for those who are quite familiar with it already.
anti_formalist12's review against another edition
3.0
Straightforward and pretty accessible. Not always the most compelling, though.
1teachingnomad's review against another edition
3.0
This book is dense with historical information and covers a very large time period, which can require a lot of background knowledge to make sense of. The introduction and the chapters regarding the Second Punic War were quite interesting and written in a more engaging style than the rest of the book.
Overall, this book was incredibly difficult to read because so much of it is filled with dense historical facts. I doubt it is of much use to anyone other than historians or people with a strong personal interest in Carthaginian history.
Overall, this book was incredibly difficult to read because so much of it is filled with dense historical facts. I doubt it is of much use to anyone other than historians or people with a strong personal interest in Carthaginian history.
aaairm's review against another edition
1.0
Dry read - I didn't enjoy it as a casual read, but I would turn to this if I ever had to do a paper or research on the topic.
maitrey_d's review against another edition
4.0
Reading this book hammered in that old chestnut over and over again: "History is always written by the victors". Although in defense of Richard Miles, he does a fair job of trying his best to overcome it. Miles is British archeologist and historian from Cambridge, but now plies his trade at the University of Sydney.
Carthage Must Be Destroyed follows a fairly linear structure from the founding of the city by Tyrians from the Levant (legend has it was founded in 814 BCE), to it's eventual destruction by the Romans in 146 BCE. The sad bit is that all these records come from their enemies: the Greeks (mainly Sicilian Greek historians) and later the Romans. This fact is repeatedly stated by Miles, who does his best to disentangle vitriolic attacks and deep-seated biases from these records to give us a coherent and readable history. He's helped a lot thanks to the recent archeological breakthroughs which have helped us re-imagine an ancient Carthage (actually Qart-Hadasht, "New City" in Phoenician).
Consequently, since we depend on sources written by enemies of this ancient city, most of the records deal only with war, and other military interactions between Carthage and it's "Western" neighbours. A few sections do deal with the fascinating interaction between Greek/Roman religious elements and Carthaginian ones leading to a unique syncretic blend of the two traditions wherever these cultures interacted (mainly) peacefully (Especially Sicily. The island, before the Roman conquest was divided into a western Carthaginian half, and eastern Greek one). Miles is also helped greatly by numismatics, the study of coins. Since Carthage struck wonderful coins (mainly to pay mercenaries though), and due to the many Carthaginian sea-trading networks, we see them popping up everywhere which gives us a rare insight into their culture.
Quite a bit of the book is obviously devoted to Hannibal and his involvement in the Second Punic War. While I don't want to read about Hannibal's military genius again (there are enough of those), I liked that Miles tried to present a new facet of his campaign I'd never read about. Hannibal ran a very slick propaganda campaign throughout his invasion of Italy where he repeatedly associated himself with the god/hero Hercules. By repeatedly sacrificing and dedicating many spoils of war to Hercules' temples, Hannibal nearly succeeded in breaking Rome through this route rather than by force of arms.
More than his overview of Carthage's history, I liked what the author was trying to do about Carthage's historiography. History shouldn't be only about the victors, and it's important to present the other side. While many historians from antiquity itself thought that Carthage's destruction was a not something Rome should take pride in, almost all of them vilified Carthage's traditions, religion and culture. (One exception if he can be called that was Virgil who turned the tables in his Aeniad. Here, Carthage's mythical founder queen Dido is everything Rome prided itself to be: honour-bound and god-fearing; while Rome's mythical founder, the eponymous Aeneas is the exact opposite. Quite what Virgil was going for I have no idea, probably as a warning to his fellow Romans that even Rome's day might come?)
The best bit about the book overall was that Miles does his best to present both Carthage (and Rome), warts and all (like the chapter where he unabashedly talks about Carthage's practice of child sacrifice during harder times). A modern history book, and we need more like it.
Carthage Must Be Destroyed follows a fairly linear structure from the founding of the city by Tyrians from the Levant (legend has it was founded in 814 BCE), to it's eventual destruction by the Romans in 146 BCE. The sad bit is that all these records come from their enemies: the Greeks (mainly Sicilian Greek historians) and later the Romans. This fact is repeatedly stated by Miles, who does his best to disentangle vitriolic attacks and deep-seated biases from these records to give us a coherent and readable history. He's helped a lot thanks to the recent archeological breakthroughs which have helped us re-imagine an ancient Carthage (actually Qart-Hadasht, "New City" in Phoenician).
Consequently, since we depend on sources written by enemies of this ancient city, most of the records deal only with war, and other military interactions between Carthage and it's "Western" neighbours. A few sections do deal with the fascinating interaction between Greek/Roman religious elements and Carthaginian ones leading to a unique syncretic blend of the two traditions wherever these cultures interacted (mainly) peacefully (Especially Sicily. The island, before the Roman conquest was divided into a western Carthaginian half, and eastern Greek one). Miles is also helped greatly by numismatics, the study of coins. Since Carthage struck wonderful coins (mainly to pay mercenaries though), and due to the many Carthaginian sea-trading networks, we see them popping up everywhere which gives us a rare insight into their culture.
Quite a bit of the book is obviously devoted to Hannibal and his involvement in the Second Punic War. While I don't want to read about Hannibal's military genius again (there are enough of those), I liked that Miles tried to present a new facet of his campaign I'd never read about. Hannibal ran a very slick propaganda campaign throughout his invasion of Italy where he repeatedly associated himself with the god/hero Hercules. By repeatedly sacrificing and dedicating many spoils of war to Hercules' temples, Hannibal nearly succeeded in breaking Rome through this route rather than by force of arms.
More than his overview of Carthage's history, I liked what the author was trying to do about Carthage's historiography. History shouldn't be only about the victors, and it's important to present the other side. While many historians from antiquity itself thought that Carthage's destruction was a not something Rome should take pride in, almost all of them vilified Carthage's traditions, religion and culture. (One exception if he can be called that was Virgil who turned the tables in his Aeniad. Here, Carthage's mythical founder queen Dido is everything Rome prided itself to be: honour-bound and god-fearing; while Rome's mythical founder, the eponymous Aeneas is the exact opposite. Quite what Virgil was going for I have no idea, probably as a warning to his fellow Romans that even Rome's day might come?)
The best bit about the book overall was that Miles does his best to present both Carthage (and Rome), warts and all (like the chapter where he unabashedly talks about Carthage's practice of child sacrifice during harder times). A modern history book, and we need more like it.
sleepyboi2988's review against another edition
5.0
Excellent book, great examination of Carthage from its beginning till its bloody end. Author does an excellent job of examining the propaganda of Carthage and its actual history. Also examined are the religious and economic aspects of the country.