This concise but illuminating history of a government that provided peace and prosperity longer than any other has no equal.

When a modest, single volume on the Roman Empire proves informative, provocative, and exciting, the reader gladly acknowledges an exceptional author. Professor Colin Wells is expert in the various aspects of Roman history, he reflects on issues independently and creatively, and he writes elegantly, and sometimes brilliantly.

This is historical writing with a bite usually missing in fast surveys… Novices and advanced students of Roman history alike will be stimulated by this book to think deeply on a grand scale about matters of great importance in ancient history.

An admirable volume.

Together these five compact volumes [Early Greece by Oswyn Murray, Democracy and Classical Greece by J. K. Davies, The Hellenistic World by F. W. Walbank, The Roman Republic by Michael Crawford, and The Roman Empire by Colin Wells, in addition to the newly published The Later Roman Empire by Averil Cameron] cover much of the history of the classical world, and do so with both ease and authority… For this new series they have been revised or otherwise brought up to date.

This book brings together the grand narrative of how the Roman Empire came to be and the social and cultural aspects that made it successful…One of the best renditions of the political history of the empire.