2007-11-01 A treasure

This book is fantastic. I had to do a project on the Colosseum for a course module and was a little stumped until I found this brilliant, brilliant book. It is well written, which with factual books, for me, means easy to read and understand without being patronising. It was very, very interesting indeed and had lots of fantastic snippets of information along with the usual, how many cubic metres of stone went into this etc, etc...It struck a lovely balance between the architecture, the history and the social significance of the building to the Romans. There were useful and relevant illustrations and a lovely, and I thought successful attempt to make it relevant to modern readers, with stuff on the film Gladiator and other contemporary resources. There was a good bibliography, which I used, so I know this to be true. I highly recommend this book, both if you're a curious tourist or a student. It's not too long, it's definitely not dry and it was well worth the money. It made me want to read others in the series, even though I'm no longer studying historical architecture, and that's saying something.