Pompeii: The Living City - Hardcover

Drawing on the latest archaeological evidence and ancient documents, a study of Pompeii offers a revealing glimpse into the ancient world of the doomed city destroyed by the 79 AD eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, capturing the complex daily lives of its inhabitants and their commerce, politics, family, institutions, and entertainment. 20,000 first printing.

The ash of Mt. Vesuvius preserves a living record of the complex and exhilarating society it instantly obliterated two thousand years ago. In this highly readable, lavishly illustrated book, Butterworth and Laurence marshall cutting-edge archaeological reconstructions and a vibrant historical tradition dating to Pliny and Tacitus; they present a richly textured portrait of a society not altogether unlike ours, composed of individuals ordinary and extraordinary who pursued commerce, politics, family and pleasure in the shadow of a killer volcano.  Deeply resonant in a world still at the mercy of natural disaster, Pompeii recreates life as experienced in the city, and those frantic, awful hours in AD 79 that wiped the bustling city from the face of the earth.