Nicholas Purcell

I didn't really enjoy this book. Nothing wrong with it, but I had expected a detailed and straightforward biography of Hadrian while it is, instead, a snapshot of Roman society under his reign. Now it surely is a good piece of social history but, I just felt cheated somehow. In fact, Hadrian's life fades in the background and is reduced to anecdotes just to illustrate points about the social portrait being delivered! It's okay for what it is, but not a biography -be warned!

I never trust a history book without footnotes or endnotes. No matter how consistent the narrative is to my own knowledge, I just don't think it's right to publish a history book without notes. No bibliography, either. Without sources, I just don't find the book credible, and I have to confess, I enjoyed it the less for that. This book also skipped over the first 30 years of Hadrian's life in a scant few pages, which was a great disappointment - the interesting stuff is what happened to make show more him the man he was, and this was virtually ignored. show less

Impenetrable. Here's a typical sample of the writing (picked at random): "Flexible responses ease the tensions created by population levels far higher than any conceivable carrying capacity of the ambient micoregion – as notably, and eloquently, with the high populations which have been common throughout our period on islands." Good luck getting through this one!