Waterstones Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Uniforms of the Roman World: A Detailed Study of the Armies of Rome and Their Enemies, Including the Etruscans, Sam
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Price: £19.99
Brand: Waterstones
Description: This is a detailed study of the armies of Rome and their enemies, including the Etruscans, Samnites, Carthaginians, Celts, Macedonians, Gauls, Huns, Sassanids, Persians and Turks. It is an incredible visual reference of the fighting men of Rome and their enemies, from the earliest settlement on the River Tiber in the 8th century BC to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. It offers a concise and authoritative overview of the rise of the Roman Empire, its campaigns, conquests and tactics, with detailed information on the men at arms. It includes coverage of the Roman navy and sea battles, as well as the artillery pieces, siege engines, defenses and military structures built by the army - from the north-west reaches of the empire to the far east. It is illustrated with over 670 images of military dress, weapons, galleys, ballistas and fortifications. This book details the uniforms of the Roman army and its enemies, from the first decades of tribal warfare in Italy, through the republican and imperial periods, up to the end of the eastern Roman Empire. It includes expert insight into the army's astonishing engineering feats, the discipline of the legions and the relentless expansion of the empire. Including information on the arms and clothing of the Carthaginians, Persians, Huns and Turks and other enemies of Rome, the book is a definitive and accessible visual study of the military dress of the period. There is also a fascinating history of the Roman's artillery, siege engines and fortifications, and a special section on the founding and expansion of its navy. Waterstones Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Uniforms of the Roman World: A Detailed Study of the Armies of Rome and Their Enemies, Including the Etruscans, Sam - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
Category: Books
Merchant: Waterstones
Product ID: 9780754823872
Delivery cost: 2.99
ISBN: 9780754823872
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Author: Andrew
Rating: 5
Review: I bought this book for some inspiration when painting some model Roman soldiers. There is a good introduction to this history of the Roman empire. The drawings are fantastic, they provide a lot of inspiration for painting models. What I like is that there are often two large drawings on most pages. The details on the figures is excellent. For me this book has served its purpose. My 12 year old son has also taken an interest in it and there is plenty of information in the text to keep him occupied! There have been some critism of the acuracy of some of the drawings in the Amazon reviews. I can't comment on this, but it is obviously not a book aimed at schollers of Roman history. It's a Dorland Kingsley style book, that is a pleasure to look at the pictures and enough information to be of interest. Its not a dry academic account of Roman uniforms. It has also been compared to the Osprey books - for me it is far better value because the Osprey books are very expensive if you only use them for the limited number of colour plates they have. If you have a child interested in Romans it would make an excellent present for them.
Author: hieronymus
Rating: 1
Review: Each book has its own fate, as the Romans were keen to observe, but I am inclined to believe that this book is merely re-living the life of others. Reading the book one very quickly gains the impression that the authors were seeking to cash in on the widespread interest in Roman military history with a minimum of effort - I really see no other explanation for such a poor result. The approach is a risky one, since the re-enactment community and other readers interested in the topic nowadays have access to a vast amount of well-written and lavishly illustrated books based on sound research and are thus mostly well-informed about recent developments in archaeology and Roman military history. The book is obviously designed to appeal to readers for its large amount of illustrations of Roman soldiers. The illustrations themselves are a matter of taste, but they're decently done. Unfortunately, this cannot be said for the research that has, or rather has not not, gone into them. The illustrations are nearly all mere copies of pictures that have appeared in other works. Most have been adopted from the Osprey series (whose plates, let it be said, are not beyond some criticism themselves), but there are also illustrations copied from works like "Roman Cavalry Equipment" (Stephenson), "Byzantine Armies 325-1453 AD" (Belezos/Giannopoulos), and the brilliant two "Greece and Rome at War" (Peter Connolly)and "Warfare in the Ancient World" (John Warry), both still available and exquisitely illustrated if slightly dated. "An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Uniforms of the Roman World" is riddled with mistakes and inaccuracies. Other reviewers have already remarked upon the rather quaint mistakes which have made their way into the book, e. g. the Macedonian companion cavalryman innocently trying to pass for a Gallic cavalryman from Vercingetorix's army (this was originally a mistake to be found in Osprey's compilation "Rome and her Enemies", for which no illustrations were specially commissioned), or the 1st century AD cavalry trumpeter galloping to engage the Goths in the time of the decline and fall...No offence to the illustrator intended, but the fact that the book's scientific quality is so poor may lead the reader to conclude that the authors were obviously completely out of their depth here.Perhaps the book is merely intended to make a showy supplement to the remaining books of the series, all of which concern themselves with armies of the 18th to 20th centuries. The task of providing an easily accessible and well-researched overview of the development of Rome's military forces (and those of her enemies!) from the Republic to the fall of Constantinople is no mean feat, and I am sure it would overwhelm even the most enterprising and erudiate of authors. In view of the impossible amount of challenges such an undertaking must pose I suppose that the only solution was to settle for the publishing of results already easily accessible and fairly accurate. It should not have been a problem to place them in a correct historic context. As it is, this muddle of a book will annoy any reader reasonably familiar with the topic.
