Synopsis
In a conversational and engaging voice, Mary Beard takes readers on a behind-the-scenes tour of one of the world's most famous archaeological sites. Pompeii has long been sold to tourists (armchair or otherwise) as a perfectly preserved relic thanks to Vesuvius's flaming geological intrusion in 79 A.D. Beard debunks and discredits this notion, pointing to factors prior and since that have impacted, changed, and sometimes destroyed this nevertheless remarkable trove of information about Roman civilization. Beard puts other commonly held ideas about life in the city under her magnifying glass, all the while describing with sensual detail what it must have been like to live in this ancient city--its tastes, sounds, sites, and smells. For starters, things stunk, were not clean, and there phalluses were everywhere--as adornments, statues, engravings, you name it. Beard brings this ancient city to new life with her realistic and fascinating portrayal. Selected by the New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of 2009.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 2008-12-15 |
| Size | | Length: | 360 pages | | Height: | 10.0 in | | Width: | 6.5 in | | Thickness: | 1.5 in | | Weight: | 26.4 oz |
Publisher's Note
From its political and religious systems to slavery and attitudes toward sex, the ruins of this ancient Roman city are explored in a study that brings to light new facts about the way the people of Pompeii lived prior to meeting their devastating end in 79 CE.
Industry Reviews
"[A]s vivid and detailed a depiction as Beard is able to provide, what is equally fascinating about Pompeii is how much we do not know."
(01/01/2009)
"In this lively survey, Beard...tempers erudition with a skepticism towards interpretive overreach."
(02/09/2009)
"[E]ngrossingly mischievous....Beard...takes cheeky, undisguised delight in puncturing the many fantasies and misconceptions that have grown up around Pompeii.... While many scholars build careers through increasingly elaborate reconstructions of the ancient world, Beard consistently stresses the limits of our knowledge, the precariousness of our constructs and the ambiguity or contradiction inherent in many of our sources."
(03/12/2009)
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