Review as featured in
Historical Miniatures Gaming Society, June 2024

“The OOBs within the text are as good as accounts and speculation can get, so you can get the gist of a tabletop battle even if all Caesar's troops are represented by one single block on a blocky map.” Read the full review [link=https://www.hmgs.org/blogpost/1779451/502543/BOOK-REVIEW-The-Battle-of-Thapsus-46BC]here.[/link]
Historical Miniatures Gaming Society, June 2024

[b]Rating[/b]: 5 out of 5 stars This is a study of the 3rd century crisis when the Roman Empire experienced a range of pressures that nearly caused it to buckle. The system of governance was simply insufficient for the size and scale of the empire and the emperor, senate, and army came to grind against each other violently. The emperors sought to wrench themselves free of a senate whose status outstripped their use value. The army faced pressures on every border and decided to seize the resources it needed to do its job properly. Grainger charts the period of, roughly, 180-280, in terms of these internal tensions and conflicts. It was a period when emperors came and went rapidly, particularly in the years 197 and 238. These two single years are cast as a kind of breaking fever, with the internal balance of the Roman government (imperial court, senate, and army) being recast each time. These are the two ‘revolutions’ of the title – not revolutions from below but revolutions from above... Read more
NetGalley, Nathan Uglow

Trafford joyfully covers 500 years of history, in chronological order, cover most of the Roman Empire in detail, with a heavy focus on those she deems "worst". I loved how she gets into the question "who says so?" rather than accepting all the primary and secondary sources at face value, examining the bias each contemporary and historian brought to the tablet. Trafford starts by comparing Augustus to a magician, cleverly hiding in plain sight the fact he was an emperor - and how subsequent emperors did or didn't do that, with the worst, coincidently, being the ones rubbing the Senators face in the fact they were absolute monarchs. A very good coverage of the emperors of Rome, especially for someone new to the subjec
NetGalley, Kara Race-Moore

This book provides so many details about Roman military equipment that it completely blew my mind. Rather than treating this as an ordinary military history book, I perceive this book as more of a profound archaeological/historical work. Supported by hundreds of references and primary sources, this book is a true gem that any Roman military aficionado should keep.
Kunwon Saw, Freelance