Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town - Softcover

The world's most controversial classicist debunks our movie-style myths about the Roman town with meticulous scholarship and propulsive energy...Scrutinising and animated in equal measure (Laura Silverman Daily Mail 2009-07-17)

A thoroughly worthy winner of the 2008 Wolfson History Prize, Mary Beard's bedroom-to-boardroom tour of the life of a Roman town is disgracefully enjoyable for such a deeply learned and sceptically debunking book (Boyd Tonkin Independent 2009-07-17)

This marvellous book won the Wolfson History Prize and is a model of subtle but accessible writing about the past (Judith Rice Guardian 2009-07-11)

[A] brilliant portrait...This meticulous, vivid study of life in the town, the winner of the 2008 Wolfson History Prize, rightly and resolutely focuses on the living city (James McConnachie Sunday Times 2009-07-12)

Classicist Mary Beard has had a great time rooting about that ghostly place and she has brought it quite splendidly back to life (Nicholas Bagnall Sunday Telegraph 2009-07-12)

To the vast field of Pompeiana she brings the human touch...This absorbing, inquisitive and affectionate account of Pompeii is a model of its kind. Beard has caught the quick of what was and, in our lives today, remains the same (Ross Leckie The Times 2009-07-04)

Very readable and excellently researched... Beard's clear-sighted and accessible style makes this a compelling look into history (Alexander Larman The Observer 2009-07-05)

If you want to know what really happened in the last days of the petrified city, Beard's meticulous reconstruction will fill you in, scraping away many of your preconceptions as it goes, while her evocative writing will transport you back (Guardian Best Holiday Books)

Wonderful piece of scholarship worn lightly and wittily (Tom Widger Sunday Tribune 2009-07-05)

Wittily written...evoking in all who read it the insatiable need to see the town for themselves (Georgie Durkheim Catholic Herald 2009-06-26)