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Book reviews for "Hooper,_Finley_Allison" sorted by average review score:

Roman Realities
Published in Textbook Binding by Wayne State Univ Pr (1979)
Author: Finley Allison, Hooper
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A fine history of Rome
Dr Hooper does an excellent job on Roman Realities. He not only does a fine job in outlining the history of Rome's transition from Republic to Empire but he also highlights the price of that empire. The inability of the Romans to adjust to the changes that hegemony brought about contained the seeds of its own destruction.

Hoopers narrative is clear and concise and is easily understood by students or laymen. As is pointed out in an excellent review below it is a bit outdated in some areas but its analysis is so well done that few books published on the empire today can match this wonderful book. The reflection on the causes of the fall of Rome are worth the price of the book itself.

Reading Hooper brings to light that fact that much of Roman history is a foreshadowing of the realities empires in every era face.

Roman History Like It Was Meant To Be
The late Dr. Hooper's terse style is like the Romans he tells of: to the point, shorn of excess, straightforward. The tone of the book matches the expression of the bust of Caracalla that adorns the cover: gravitas personified. He spends more time on the Republic than on the Empire, and breaks off during the Civil Wars for a chapter on Latin letters and poetry (a subject taken again in his "Roman Letters"). Hooper covers all the highlights in highly readable fashion. A fine general/introductory book on the subject, written in magistral fashion. -Lloyd Conway

It's a good book...
I read Roman Realities for a class that I had to take for Roman History, although we only touched on a few of the earlier aspects of the book, it is still a great book just to read, even if it wasn't assigned for a class! If you have any intrest to learn about the Rome in any way, go ahead and get this book!


Greek Realities: Life and Thought in Ancient Greece
Published in Paperback by Wayne State Univ Pr (1978)
Author: Finley Allison Hooper
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A History With A View
Hooper's book panoramas the history of Hellenic civilization from Mycenae to the Alexandrine Age. His grasp of art, archaeology, architecture, and complete command of his sources inform the magistrial prose that pours off of every page. That said, the size of the book is manageable. Hooper's view of history is similar to Thucydides: non-idealistic, and mistrustful of extreme forms of democracy. His views come as through strongly in interpeting the course of Greek history and civilization in this book as they did in his lectures when I was his student at Wayne State. This is most evident in his chapters on the three Athenian generations streching fron Marathon to defeat in the Peloponesian War. The feeling of inevitability, as the city-state moves from triumphant action to hurbis, exemplified by the debate over the expedition to Syracuse,to defeat at the hands of Sparta, reads like a Greek tragedy. So it was. -Lloyd A. Conway


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