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timoneill 's review for:
Pax: War and Peace in Rome's Golden Age
by Tom Holland
The study of history needs writers like Tom Holland. There is, unfortunately, a type of academic historian who looks askance at writers of popular, narrative history; seeing it as inferior to the technical analysis and synthesis of sources that occupies most professional experts in the field. There are, even more unfortunately, a few of these who are actively scornful and hostile toward those who write for a broader, non-specialist audience; partly because they are seen as dabblers who oversimplify or distort complex subjects and (I suspect) at least partly out of resentment at the popular writers' higher profiles and larger book sales. Some of this sniffy gate-keeping of the guild is certainly justified, as there is a lot of by-the-numbers, formulaic, misleading and badly written pop history out there. But Holland has the right combination of understanding of the source material, grasp of the scholarship, an engaging and elegant writing style and just enough of a dash of sensation and fun.
The latter has been honed, in no small part, by Holland's popular podcast "The Rest is History", which he presents with his modern history specialist co-host Dominic Sandbrook. Listeners to Holland the podcaster will be familiar with some of the content of Pax: Nero and his unfortunate concubine Sporus, Hadrian's Wall, Pompeii etc. But Pax is Holland in his more serious mode, so these stories are told without the podcast's banter, though with some hints at its in-jokes. His previous works on Roman history, which with Pax form a trilogy, are the obvious background to this new work. But the book which sits behind Pax in many respects is Holland's last work, Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind (2019). While the main focus of that book - the importance of Christianity in shaping later western ideas and attitudes - is not, in itself, relevant to Pax (Christianity is only mentioned briefly in a final chapter), the strangeness of the pre-Christian world of the Romans is made even more clear in this new work.
So Holland does his best to help us understand a world that is, in many respects, alien to us. Slaves are an unquestioned fact of society. The enslaved and even non-citizens can be used sexually without consequences. Public displays of grotesque violence are normal and popular. Imperial might is expected to be imposed by brutal force. Holland explains these stranger and (to us) uglier aspects of the ancient world without trying to make them palatable or relatable to the modern reader. The weirdness is part of the point.
This also means that this is a not a bright and pretty, romantic or idealised version of the period of the Pax Romana. The fact that this pax was imposed and maintained by violence is made abundantly clear. Tacitus' wry observation, put in the mouth of a British chieftain, that the Romans "make a wilderness and call it peace" is the underlying theme of Holland's account. The book may be titled "Peace" but a lot of it details war and violence: the civil wars of 69 AD, the Jewish Wars, uprisings on the Rhine and in Caledonia and a hell of a lot of grisly executions.
The difficulty with writing popular narrative history of pre-modern times is our sources are fragmentary, scattered, biased and often unclear or contradictory. Specialists may have quibbles about the choices Holland is forced to make, but he's a judicious writer who picks his way through these problems with care. Most readers, however, will simply enjoy an elegantly written tour of the Roman world from Nero to Antoninus Pius, with side trips into the obscure and plenty of lively detail. The popularity of Indian pepper in second century Rome is detailed, along with the trade across the Indian Ocean from Roman ports on the Red Sea. But the vivid detail that the sacks of peppercorns were stamped with a tiger's head design is the kind of thing that makes this book a pleasure to read.
I read Pax as a palate cleanser between other, less easy and pleasurable fare: some of those dense academic historical monographs and a very stupid pseudo historical conspiracy theory. It was always a relief to turn from them to Tom Holland telling me a carefully researched and beautifully written story of a lost world. And this is why we need books like Pax.
The latter has been honed, in no small part, by Holland's popular podcast "The Rest is History", which he presents with his modern history specialist co-host Dominic Sandbrook. Listeners to Holland the podcaster will be familiar with some of the content of Pax: Nero and his unfortunate concubine Sporus, Hadrian's Wall, Pompeii etc. But Pax is Holland in his more serious mode, so these stories are told without the podcast's banter, though with some hints at its in-jokes. His previous works on Roman history, which with Pax form a trilogy, are the obvious background to this new work. But the book which sits behind Pax in many respects is Holland's last work, Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind (2019). While the main focus of that book - the importance of Christianity in shaping later western ideas and attitudes - is not, in itself, relevant to Pax (Christianity is only mentioned briefly in a final chapter), the strangeness of the pre-Christian world of the Romans is made even more clear in this new work.
So Holland does his best to help us understand a world that is, in many respects, alien to us. Slaves are an unquestioned fact of society. The enslaved and even non-citizens can be used sexually without consequences. Public displays of grotesque violence are normal and popular. Imperial might is expected to be imposed by brutal force. Holland explains these stranger and (to us) uglier aspects of the ancient world without trying to make them palatable or relatable to the modern reader. The weirdness is part of the point.
This also means that this is a not a bright and pretty, romantic or idealised version of the period of the Pax Romana. The fact that this pax was imposed and maintained by violence is made abundantly clear. Tacitus' wry observation, put in the mouth of a British chieftain, that the Romans "make a wilderness and call it peace" is the underlying theme of Holland's account. The book may be titled "Peace" but a lot of it details war and violence: the civil wars of 69 AD, the Jewish Wars, uprisings on the Rhine and in Caledonia and a hell of a lot of grisly executions.
The difficulty with writing popular narrative history of pre-modern times is our sources are fragmentary, scattered, biased and often unclear or contradictory. Specialists may have quibbles about the choices Holland is forced to make, but he's a judicious writer who picks his way through these problems with care. Most readers, however, will simply enjoy an elegantly written tour of the Roman world from Nero to Antoninus Pius, with side trips into the obscure and plenty of lively detail. The popularity of Indian pepper in second century Rome is detailed, along with the trade across the Indian Ocean from Roman ports on the Red Sea. But the vivid detail that the sacks of peppercorns were stamped with a tiger's head design is the kind of thing that makes this book a pleasure to read.
I read Pax as a palate cleanser between other, less easy and pleasurable fare: some of those dense academic historical monographs and a very stupid pseudo historical conspiracy theory. It was always a relief to turn from them to Tom Holland telling me a carefully researched and beautifully written story of a lost world. And this is why we need books like Pax.