“The book that really held me, in fact, obsessed me, was Rubicon by Tom Holland. This is narrative history at its best. Bloody and labyrinthine political intrigue and struggle, brilliant oratory, amazing feats of conquest and cruelty. Holland’s lucid account of this alien civilisation moves at a fine pace. He makes no facile comparisons with our times, but you sense you are witnessing through him the enduring difficulty of reconciling power and peace.”
Ian McEwan, The Guardian Books of the Year
“Gripping and hugely entertaining… It is a story crammed with drama and spectacle, but the real attraction of Holland’s book is the wit and contemporary sensibility that he brings to his often bloody tale.”
Sunday Times Top 5 History Books of the Year
“I hugely enjoyed Tom Holland’s Rubicon and I congratulate him on making Roman republican politics far more entertaining than their 21st-Century equivalent.”
Griff Rhys Jones, Daily Telegraph Books of the Year
“Excellent and extremely readable.”
John Bayley, The Guardian Books of the Year
“Readers should not be daunted by the fact that Rubicon is a history of the Roman Empire at the height of its fame… The excitement of this book lies in the knowledge that once the summit is reached, either of a mountain or a civilisation, the trail leads downwards.”
Beryl Bainbridge, The Guardian Books of the Year
“Tom Holland’s excellent new study of the fall of the Republic… re-evaluating Rome for a new generation.”
Robert Harris, The Sunday Times
“A terrific read and a remarkable piece of scholarship. As an introduction to Roman history, it is unlikely to be bettered.”
The Daily Mail
“[The story of the Republic’s collapse] is told afresh with tremendous wit, narrative verve and insight…What characters there were in this drama! Holland envisions them “half emerging from antique marble, their faces illumined by a background of gold and fire, the glare of an alien yet sometimes eerily familiar world.” And before our very eyes, with all their pride and ambition, fitful cruelty and fitful clemency, he resurrects them with a novelistic luminosity which illuminates not only that lost world, but our own as well.”
The Independent on Sunday
“A master of the telling detail… Rubicon is unrivalled in revealing the humbug behind the cant and stripping Julius Caesar and company of their moral finery.”
Frederic Raphael, The Sunday Times
“Splendid verve… [Holland’s] writing is as pellucid as Macaulay’s.”
Allan Massie, The Spectator
“Tom Holland has produced in one volume the crispest and most compelling account of this momentous period I have ever read.”
The Seattle Times
“For the student of contemporary politics as well as the classicist, Tom Holland’s account of the last century or so of the Roman Republic is timely. It enables the reader to re-live the slow, bloodstained collapse of a system, not only as a fascinating drama in its own right, but as a morality tale… This gripping narrative resurrects some of the half-forgotten personalities and events that shaped who we are. In the light of the parallels between the two great imperial republics, it can be recommended as an instructive beach-read for senior politicians on both sides of the Atlantic.”
Anthony Everett, The Independent
“Ancient history often descends to us either through impregnable academic works or the sword-and-sandal epics of the cinema. What Holland achieves is to draw from both genres to write a modern, well-paced and finely observed history which entertains as it informs… [He] succeeds brilliantly.”
The Observer
“Ideal bedside reading for George W. Bush… a vivid social portrait of the Roman world.”
Max Hastings, The Sunday Telegraph
“Tom Holland’s engrossing new retelling of the Republic’s last gory century… A thoroughly worthwhile and timely project – an account of a formative period of Western history that manages to be accessible and not over-simplified.”
The Daily Telegraph
“Breaks new ground… the work of a writer impressively in command of his material… an elegant alternative to chick lit, magical realism and the so-called Booker novel.”
Robert McCrum, The Observer
“Fascinating… In every aspect of this story, Holland expertly makes the Romans, so alien and yet so familiar, relevant to us.”
The Los Angeles Times
“Holland brings a diverse cast of characters to life and in his descriptions of the skullduggery, luxury and squalor of ancient Rome he’s marvellously entertaining.”
The Evening Herald
“'Explosive stuff... a seriously intelligent history... [written] with élan and gusto... One can see classicists like Paul Wolfowitz eagerly seizing this book to find out how to deal with those tricky mid-easterners… Wickedly enjoyable'.”
Peter Jones, BBC History Magazine
“Always readable and often beautiful… essential reading for anyone interested in ancient history. However, it also says more about our modern civilisation than many books that more overtly address the contemporary political and social issues… [Holland] blows the dust off an ancient civilisation, and shows that we still have plenty to learn from the past.”
The Sunday Business Post
"Fresh and vivid... there is no better and clearer guide to the tangled political events of 100-44 BC...if a new readership is to be won for ancient history, it is books like this that will pave the way."
Frank McLynn, The New Statesman
“Although the events recorded in this narrative history of a state that ruled the then-known world took place some 2,000 years ago, Holland shows how life in the Roman Republic had much in common with modern times… His colourful, hugely readable portrait of this ancient world will have readers in thrall from the very first page.”
Publishing News
“Immensely readable, a perfect combination of authoritative scholarship and racy narrative… No easy task, and he performs it brilliantly.”
David Wishart, The Scotsman
“Stunning… Rubicon is unusually well informed by any standard and impressive for its large but not overwhelming cast of characters. The roster goes well beyond the expected Marius and Sulla, Pompey and Crassus, Caesar and Cicero. Look out for prototypical metrosexuals, high-class oyster purveyors, overprivileged aristo table-dancers, back-alley prostitutes and a small army of political bit players – mercifully not all identified by name. Holland keeps his narrative moving at chariot-race speed.”
Corey Brennan, Newsday
