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Author: Rob Goodman
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2012-10-16
Total Pages: 382
ISBN-13: 0312681232
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This biography of Marcus Cato the Younger -- Rome's bravest statesman, an aristocratic soldier, a Stoic philosopher, and staunch defender of sacred Roman tradition -- is rich with resonances for current politics and contemporary notions of freedom.
Author: Rob Goodman
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2012-10-16
Total Pages: 384
ISBN-13: 1250013585
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →"Cato, history's most famous foe of authoritarian power, was the pivotal political man of Rome; an inspiration to our Founding Fathers; and a cautionary figure for our times. He loved Roman republicanism, but saw himself as too principled for the mere politics that might have saved it. His life and lessons are urgently relevant in the harshly divided America—and world—of today. With erudition and verve, Rob Goodman and Jimmy Soni turn their life of Cato into the most modern of biographies, a blend of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and Game Change."—Howard Fineman, Editorial Director of The Huffington Post Media Group, NBC and MSNBC News Analyst, and New York Times bestselling author of The Thirteen American Arguments "A truly outstanding piece of work. What most impresses me is the book's ability to reach through the confusing dynastic politics of the late Roman Republic to present social realities in a way intelligible to the modern reader. Rome's Last Citizen entertainingly restores to life the stoic Roman who inspired George Washington, Patrick Henry and Nathan Hale. This is more than a biography: it is a study of how a reputation lasted through the centuries from the end of one republic to the start of another."—David Frum, DailyBeast columnist, former White House speech writer, and New York Times bestselling author of The Right Man Marcus Porcius Cato: aristocrat who walked barefoot and slept on the ground with his troops, political heavyweight who cultivated the image of a Stoic philosopher, a hardnosed defender of tradition who presented himself as a man out of the sacred Roman past—and the last man standing when Rome's Republic fell to tyranny. His blood feud with Caesar began in the chamber of the Senate, played out on the battlefields of a world war, and ended when he took his own life rather than live under a dictator. Centuries of thinkers, writers, and artists have drawn inspiration from Cato's Stoic courage. Saint Augustine and the early Christians were moved and challenged by his example. Dante, in his Divine Comedy, chose Cato to preside over the souls who arrive in Purgatory. George Washington so revered him that he staged a play on Cato's life to revive the spirit of his troops at Valley Forge. Now, in Rome's Last Citizen, Rob Goodman and Jimmy Soni deliver the first modern biography of this stirring figure. Cato's life is a gripping tale that resonates deeply with our own turbulent times. He grappled with terrorists, a debt crisis, endemic political corruption, and a huge gulf between the elites and those they governed. In many ways, Cato was the ultimate man of principle—he even chose suicide rather than be used by Caesar as a political pawn. But Cato was also a political failure: his stubbornness sealed his and Rome's defeat, and his lonely end casts a shadow on the recurring hope that a singular leader can transcend the dirty business of politics. Rome's Last Citizen is a timeless story of an uncompromising man in a time of crisis and his lifelong battle to save the Republic.
Author: Fred K. Drogula
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2019
Total Pages: 377
ISBN-13: 019086902X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Marcus Porcius Cato (the Younger) is most famous for being Julius Caesar's nemesis. His sustained antagonism was in large part responsible for pushing the Romans towards civil war. Yet Cato never wanted war even though he used the threat of violence against Caesar. This strategic gamble misfired as Caesar, instead of yielding, marched on Rome, hurling the Republic into a bloody civil war. Refusing to inhabit a world ruled by Caesar, Cato took his own life. Although the Roman historian Sallust identified Cato and Caesar as the two most outstanding men of their age, modern scholars have tended to dismiss Cato as a cantankerous conservative who, while colorful, was not a critical player in the events that overtook the Republic. This book, in providing a much-needed reliable biography of Cato, contradicts that assessment. In addition to being Caesar's adversary, Cato is an important and fascinating historical figure in his own right, and his career-in particular, his idiosyncrasies-shed light on the changing political culture of the late Republic. Cato famously reached into Rome's hallowed past and found mannerisms and habits to adopt that transformed him into the foremost champion of ancestral custom. Thus Cato did things that seemed strange and even bizarre such as wearing an old-fashioned tint of purple on his senatorial toga, refusing to ride a horse when on public business, and going about barefoot and without the usual tunic as an undergarment. His extreme conservatism-which became celebrated in later ages, especially in Enlightenment Europe and revolutionary America--was actually designed to give him a unique advantage in Roman politics. This is not to claim that he was insincere in his combative promotion of the mos maiorum (the way of the ancestors), but his political manipulation of the Romans' reverence for their traditions was masterful. By providing a new, detailed portrait of Cato, the book also presents a unique narrative of the age he helped shape and inadvertently destroy.
Author: Steele Brand
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 2019-09-10
Total Pages: 393
ISBN-13: 1421429861
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →A sweeping political and cultural history, Killing for the Republic closes with a compelling argument in favor of resurrecting the citizen-soldier ideal in modern America.
Author: Anthony Everitt
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2011-11-30
Total Pages: 400
ISBN-13: 1588360342
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “An excellent introduction to a critical period in the history of Rome. Cicero comes across much as he must have lived: reflective, charming and rather vain.”—The Wall Street Journal “All ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher combined.”—John Adams He squared off against Caesar and was friends with young Brutus. He advised the legendary Pompey on his botched transition from military hero to politician. He lambasted Mark Antony and was master of the smear campaign, as feared for his wit as he was for his ruthless disputations. Brilliant, voluble, cranky, a genius of political manipulation but also a true patriot and idealist, Cicero was Rome’s most feared politician, one of the greatest lawyers and statesmen of all times. In this dynamic and engaging biography, Anthony Everitt plunges us into the fascinating, scandal-ridden world of ancient Rome in its most glorious heyday—when senators were endlessly filibustering legislation and exposing one another’s sexual escapades to discredit the opposition. Accessible to us through his legendary speeches but also through an unrivaled collection of unguarded letters to his close friend Atticus, Cicero comes to life as a witty and cunning political operator, the most eloquent and astute witness to the last days of Republican Rome. Praise for Cicero “ [Everitt makes] his subject—brilliant, vain, principled, opportunistic and courageous—come to life after two millennia.”—The Washington Post “ Gripping . . . Everitt combines a classical education with practical expertise. . . . He writes fluidly.”—The New York Times “In the half-century before the assassination of Julius Caesar . . . Rome endured a series of crises, assassinations, factional bloodletting, civil wars and civil strife, including at one point government by gang war. This period, when republican government slid into dictatorship, is one of history’s most fascinating, and one learns a great deal about it in this excellent and very readable biography.”—The Plain Dealer “Riveting . . . a clear-eyed biography . . . Cicero’s times . . . offer vivid lessons about the viciousness that can pervade elected government.”—Chicago Tribune “Lively and dramatic . . . By the book’s end, he’s managed to put enough flesh on Cicero’s old bones that you care when the agents of his implacable enemy, Mark Antony, kill him.”—Los Angeles Times
Author: Michael J. Hillyard
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
Published: 2001-08-16
Total Pages: 196
ISBN-13: 1401011268
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →A compilation of the recorded life, times, and influence of a Roman legend, Cincinnatus and the Citizen-Servant Ideal captures the essence of human virtue as it was embodied in the Roman Republic?s earliest days. Describing Cincinnatus?s recorded life and times, Hillyard traces the legend?s major interpretations from its origin amidst early Roman culture through contemporary times. In its impact on some of the world?s leading thinkers and leaders, such as Livy, George Washington, Henry Knox, Harry Truman, and others, the Cincinnatus legend is described in the many interesting forms it has taken over two millennia. Carried throughout the narrative is the timeless nature of the Cincinnatus ideal?the central issues of the role of citizen and leader in society.
Author: Noah Shusterman
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Published: 2020-09-01
Total Pages: 354
ISBN-13: 0813944627
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Although much has changed in the United States since the eighteenth century, our framework for gun laws still largely relies on the Second Amendment and the patterns that emerged in the colonial era. America has long been a heavily armed, and racially divided, society, yet few citizens understand either why militias appealed to the founding fathers or the role that militias played in North American rebellions, in which they often functioned as repressive—and racist—domestic forces. In Armed Citizens, Noah Shusterman explains for a general reader what eighteenth-century militias were and why the authors of the Constitution believed them to be necessary to the security of a free state. Suggesting that the question was never whether there was a right to bear arms, but rather, who had the right to bear arms, Shusterman begins with the lessons that the founding generation took from the history of Ancient Rome and Machiavelli’s reinterpretation of those myths during the Renaissance. He then turns to the rise of France’s professional army during seventeenth-century Europe and the fear that it inspired in England. Shusterman shows how this fear led British writers to begin praising citizens’ militias, at the same time that colonial America had come to rely on those militias as a means of defense and as a system to police enslaved peoples. Thus the start of the Revolution allowed Americans to portray their struggle as a war of citizens against professional soldiers, leading the authors of the Constitution to place their trust in citizen soldiers and a "well-regulated militia," an idea that persists to this day.
Author: Cullen Murphy
Publisher: HMH
Published: 2008-05-05
Total Pages: 272
ISBN-13: 0547527071
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →What went wrong in imperial Rome, and how we can avoid it: “If you want to understand where America stands in the world today, read this.” —Thomas E. Ricks The rise and fall of ancient Rome has been on American minds since the beginning of our republic. Depending on who’s doing the talking, the history of Rome serves as either a triumphal call to action—or a dire warning of imminent collapse. In this “provocative and lively” book, Cullen Murphy points out that today we focus less on the Roman Republic than on the empire that took its place, and reveals a wide array of similarities between the two societies (The New York Times). Looking at the blinkered, insular culture of our capitals; the debilitating effect of bribery in public life; the paradoxical issue of borders; and the weakening of the body politic through various forms of privatization, Murphy persuasively argues that we most resemble Rome in the burgeoning corruption of our government and in our arrogant ignorance of the world outside—two things that must be changed if we are to avoid Rome’s fate. “Are We Rome? is just about a perfect book. . . . I wish every politician would spend an evening with this book.” —James Fallows
Author: Colleen McCullough
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-04-07
Total Pages: 1152
ISBN-13: 0063019795
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →With extraordinary narrative power, New York Times bestselling author Colleen McCullough sweeps the reader into a whirlpool of pageantry and passion, bringing to vivid life the most glorious epoch in human history. When the world cowered before the legions of Rome, two extraordinary men dreamed of personal glory: the military genius and wealthy rural "upstart" Marius, and Sulla, penniless and debauched but of aristocratic birth. Men of exceptional vision, courage, cunning, and ruthless ambition, separately they faced the insurmountable opposition of powerful, vindictive foes. Yet allied they could answer the treachery of rivals, lovers, enemy generals, and senatorial vipers with intricate and merciless machinations of their own—to achieve in the end a bloody and splendid foretold destiny . . . and win the most coveted honor the Republic could bestow.
Author: Robert Morstein-Marx
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2021-08-26
Total Pages: 703
ISBN-13: 1108837840
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Reinterprets Julius Caesar not as an autocrat seeking to overthrow the Roman Republic, but as an unusually successful political leader.
