Rome

Christopher Hibbert was born in Leicestershire in 1924 and educated at Radley and Oriel College, Oxford. He served as an infantry officer during the war, was twice wounded and was awarded the Military Cross in 1945. Described by Professor J. H. Plumb as 'a writer of the highest ability' and in the New Statesman as 'a pearl of biographers', he is, in the words of The Times Educational Supplement, 'perhaps the most gifted popular historian we have'. Christopher Hibbert is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He is married with two sons and a daughter and lives in Henley-on-Thames.

• Part 1: myths, monarchs and republicans; imperial Rome; bread and circuses; catacombs and Christians; infamy and anarchy; saints, tyrants and anti-popes; "the refuge of all the nations"; Renaissance and decadence; patrons and parasites; the sack of Rome. Part 2: recovery and reform; Bernini and the Baroque; il settecento; Napoleonic interlude; the Risorgimento and the Roman question; royal Rome; Roma fascista; epilogue - the eternal city. Part 3: notes on topography, buildings and works of art.

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