The Triumph of Empire

“A genuinely bracing and innovative history of Rome.”—The Times Literary Supplement

“This was an era of great change, and Kulikowski is an excellent and insightful guide.”—Adrian Goldsworthy, The Wall Street Journal

“A breezy and animated, yet authoritative look at this remarkable time… Sure to be of interest to anybody with a taste in character-driven history.”—Military History Review

“[A] sweeping history.”—Pennsylvania Literary Journal

“This is a wonderfully broad sweep of Roman history. It tells the fascinating story of imperial rule from the enigmatic Hadrian through the dozens of warlords and usurpers who fought for the throne in the third century AD, to the Christian emperors of the fourth—after the biggest religious and cultural revolution the world has ever seen.”—Mary Beard, University of Cambridge

“A lively, accessible, up-to-date account of the ancient world during the critical period of Rome’s domination of her powerful and diverse empire.”—Alan Bowman, University of Oxford

“Kulikowski provides an energizing depiction of the Roman Empire at its height. His light prose style masks a deep engagement with the period and the problems posed to the Empire from within and beyond its borders.”—Hugh Elton, Trent University

“Kulikowski’s great triumph is to present, in an engaging and lively manner, a new historical narrative with a clear, distinctive line of interpretation for the crucial and complex era of transformation from the world of the high empire to late antiquity.”—R. W. Benet Salway, University College London

“An impressive book with an incisive, fresh exposition of how Rome’s rulers triumphantly remade their empire in response to relentless pressures over two and a half centuries. A page-turner set on a vast physical canvas stretching from Scotland to Ethiopia and China.”—Richard Talbert, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

“A fascinating account showing just what it was like to be a Roman emperor—the endless court politics, the shock of outside events, the need to bring in reforms, and, above all, the constant struggle to stay alive and keep your place on the throne.”—Jerry Toner, University of Cambridge

“Kulikowski’s lucid narrative deftly navigates one of the most tangled periods of Roman imperial history. Triumphing over treacherous source material, he shows Rome’s third century nightmare as part of a sequence of events that convulsed the whole of Eurasia. The Triumph of Empire is a dramatic and a revealing history of cataclysm and recovery.”—Greg Woolf, University of London