Pox Romana

Pox Romana

Author: Colin Elliott

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2024-02-06

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 069121915X

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"A new account of the Antonine plague and its long-lasting effects on the history of the Roman empire"--


Pax Romana

Pax Romana

Author: Adrian Goldsworthy

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2016-09-06

Total Pages: 653

ISBN-13: 0300222262

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The leading ancient world historian and author of Caesar presents “an engrossing account of how the Roman Empire grew and operated” (Kirkus). Renowned for his biographies of Julius Caesar and Augustus, Adrian Goldsworthy turns his attention to the Roman Empire as a whole during its height in the first and second centuries AD. Though this time is known as the Roman Peace, or Pax Romana, the Romans were fierce imperialists who took by force vast lands stretching from the Euphrates to the Atlantic coast. The Romans ruthlessly won peace not through coexistence but through dominance; millions died and were enslaved during the creation of their empire. Pax Romana examines how the Romans came to control so much of the world and asks whether traditionally favorable images of the Roman peace are true. Goldsworthy vividly recounts the rebellions of the conquered, examining why they broke out, why most failed, and how they became exceedingly rare. He reveals that hostility was just one reaction to the arrival of Rome and that from the outset, conquered peoples collaborated, formed alliances, and joined invaders, causing resistance movements to fade away.


Pox Americana

Pox Americana

Author: Elizabeth A. Fenn

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2002-10-02

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 9780809078219

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A horrifying epidemic of smallpox was sweeping across the Americas when the War of Independence began, and yet little is known about it. Fenn reveals how deeply "variola" affected the outcome of the war in every colony and the lives of everyone in North America. Illustrations.


The Great Pox

The Great Pox

Author: Jon Arrizabalaga

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 1997-01-01

Total Pages: 378

ISBN-13: 9780300069341

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A century and a half after the Black Death killed over a third of the population of Western Europe, a new plague swept across the continent. The Great Pox - commonly known as the French Disease - brought a different kind of horror: instead of killing its victims rapidly, it endured in their bodies for years, causing acute pain, disfigurement and ultimately an agonising death. The authors analyse the symptoms of the Great Pox and the identity of patients, richly documented in the records of the massive hospital of 'incurables' established in early sixteenth-century Rome. They show how the disease threw accepted medical theory and practice into confusion and provoked public disputations among university teachers. And at the most practical level they reveal the plight of its victims at all levels of society, from ecclesiastical lords to the poor who begged in the streets. Examining a range of contexts from princely courts and republics to university faculties, confraternities and hospitals, the authors argue powerfully for a historical understanding of the Great Pox based on contemporary perceptions rather than on a retrospective diagnosis of what later generations came to know as 'syphilis'.


Rome Is Burning

Rome Is Burning

Author: Anthony A. Barrett

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2022-02-22

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 0691233942

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"Nero became Emperor in A.D 54. On the evening of July 18, 64 A. D., it seems that a lamp was left unextinguished in a stall still heaped with piles of combustible material. Whether this was accidental or deliberate we cannot now determine, and normally it would not have led to anything that would have attracted even local attention. But there was a gusty wind that night, and the flickering flame was fanned onto the flammable wares. The ensuing fire quickly spread. Before the onlookers could absorb what was happening one of the most catastrophic disasters ever to be endured by Rome was already underway. It was a disaster that brought death and misery to thousands. In Nero and the Great Fire of Rome, Anthony Barrett draws on new textual interpretations and the latest archaeological evidence, to tell the story of this pivotal moment in Rome's history and its lasting significance. Barrett argues that the Great Fire, which destroyed much of the city, changed the course of Roman History. The fire led to the collapse of Nero's regime, and his disorderly exit brought an end to Rome's first imperial dynasty, transforming from thereto, the way that emperors were selected. It also led to the first systematic persecution of the Christians, who were blamed for the blaze. Barrett provides the first comprehensive study of this dramatic event, which remains a fascination of the public imagination, and continues to be a persistent theme in the art and literature of popular culture today"--


Nature's Magic

Nature's Magic

Author: Peter Corning

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2003-05-05

Total Pages: 476

ISBN-13: 9781139442183

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Nature's Magic presents a bold vision of the evolutionary process from the Big Bang to the 21st century. Synergy of various kinds is not only a ubiquitous aspect of the natural world but it has also been a wellspring of creativity and the 'driver' of the broad evolutionary trend toward increased complexity, in nature and human societies alike. But in contrast with the many theories of emergence or complexity that rely on some underlying force or 'law', the 'Synergism Hypothesis', as Peter Corning calls it, is in essence an economic theory of biological complexity; it is fully consistent with mainstream evolutionary biology. Corning refers to it as Holistic Darwinism. Among the many important insights that are provided by this new paradigm, Corning presents a scenario in which the human species invented itself; synergistic, behavioral and technological innovations were the 'pacemakers' of our biological evolution. Synergy has also been the key to the evolution of complex modern societies, he concludes.


Between Hope and Fear

Between Hope and Fear

Author: Michael Kinch

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2018-07-03

Total Pages: 486

ISBN-13: 1681778203

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If you have a child in school, you may have heard stories of long-dormant diseases suddenly reappearing—cases of measles, mumps, rubella, and whooping cough cropping up everywhere from elementary schools to Ivy League universities because a select group of parents refuse to vaccinate their children. Between Hope and Fear tells the remarkable story of vaccine-preventable infectious diseases and their social and political implications. While detailing the history of vaccine invention, Kinch reveals the ominous reality that our victories against vaccine-preventable diseases are not permanent—and could easily be undone. In the tradition of John Barry’s The Great Influenza and Siddhartha Mukherjee’s The Emperor of All Maladies, Between Hope and Fear relates the remarkable intersection of science, technology, and disease that has helped eradicate many of the deadliest plagues known to man.


The Jacquerie of 1358

The Jacquerie of 1358

Author: Justine Firnhaber-Baker

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 0198856415

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The Jacquerie of 1358 is one of the most famous and mysterious peasant uprisings of the Middle Ages. This book, the first extended study of the Jacquerie in over a century, resolves long-standing controversies about whether the revolt was just an irrational explosion of peasant hatred or simply an extension of the Parisian revolt.


The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome

The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome

Author: Edward J. Watts

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2023-10-11

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0197691951

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The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome tells the story of 2200 years of the use and misuse of the idea of Roman decline by ambitious politicians, authors, and autocrats as well as the people scapegoated and victimized in the name of Roman renewal. It focuses on the long history of a way of describing change that might seem innocuous, but which has cost countless people their lives, liberty, or property across two millennia.