U.s. Army A Complete History Book

3.5 stars.

A very ambitious book trying to explore all different facets of ancient western civilization (Greece and Rome - the latter with a focus primarily on the late Republican and Early Empire periods).

While political and military history are (to some extent) covered by this book, a significant part is actually dedicated to complementary aspects such as society structure and evolution, economy, literature, art and culture, philosophy and religion.

The book does not present a uniform, continuous narrative (there is no strict timeline throughout the reading), and it is structured as a series of essays by different authors.

Because of this approach, and because of the overambitious nature of this book (I think it is just impossible to cover all these facets of ancient Western Civilization in just one book, even a book of 900 pages like this one), the quality and level of detail fluctuate significantly from one subject to another: for example, some periods and subjects (such as Late Antiquity, or Neoplatonic philosophy) are just barely touched and leave the more knowledgeable reader quite dissatisfied.

If you are after a detailed scholarly treatment of these subjects , then I am afraid that this is probably not the best book for you - I must say that there is little that I did not already know, and which I already found elsewhere treated at a significantly deeper level of detail.

On the other hand, this book represents a nice, interesting, multidimensional introductory overview of all major cultural aspects of ancient Western Civilization.