Saturday 6 February 2016

Will I read them all? I'm trying!

Happy Saturday to you!

The Last Frontier The Roman Invasions of Scotland by Antony Kamm

I'm at that stage again of having read yet another Roman Scotland textbook but as you can read below I'm not quite thinking that's what it was. 

I'm not disappointed, though, because what I haven't got yet is the properly 'joined up' thinking of what went on on the Roman Empire before Julius and Claudius decided to invade Britain. I also don't have a proper grasp of what went on after the Roman withdrawal from Scotland, so this book will be useful for that in the future. I can't absorb everything on one read, the brain cells are slow to respond to the machinations of the Roman Empire and especially when it fragmented into Eastern and Western Empires but this book will join the growing set on my Roman History Shelf. 

Here's what I wrote on Amazon and Goodreads:


The book is a wonderful ‘go to’ book for reference as a broad overview of the Roman Empire, with a partial focus on the history of Roman Britain. However, I was hoping for more of the book to cover the few hundred years of Roman occupation in Scotland and that isn’t what I found. For that reason I think the title is a bit misleading- though having read a number of other texts on Roman Scotland, I realise it’s a difficult job to fill the pages purely on Roman Scotland finds. That said, I will be dipping into the book again and again, since I can’t absorb all Kamm has written in one read.



I gave the book 4 stars - mainly because of the content being general rather than specific.

What I didn't add in the short review:

The maps will probably be very useful to me in the future as will the timelines at the back of the book. What I forgot to mention in the review was that the book was very well written, well edited and readable for the non-expert, i.e. an interested dabbler as I am. I liked the inclusion of the translated sources from the ancient historians. 


I'll now focus a little more on my ~TBR fiction pile of books till my next Roman Britain book pops through my letterbox. No, I can;t stop buying more and more information on the subject of my obsession.
Slainthe! 

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