Publisher Description
An epic history of a doomed civilization and a lost empire.
The devastating struggle to the death between the Carthaginians and the Romans was one of the defining dramas of the ancient world. In an epic series of land and sea battles, both sides came close to victory before the Carthaginians finally succumbed and their capital city, history, and culture were almost utterly erased.
Drawing on a wealth of new archaeological research, Richard Miles vividly brings to life this lost empire-from its origins among the Phoenician settlements of Lebanon to its apotheosis as the greatest seapower in the Mediterranean. And at the heart of the history of Carthage lies the extraordinary figure of Hannibal-the scourge of Rome and one of the greatest military leaders, but a man who also unwittingly led his people to catastrophe.
The first full-scale history of Carthage in decades, Carthage Must Be Destroyed reintroduces modern listeners to the larger-than-life historical players and the ancient glory of this almost forgotten civilization.
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“History is written by the victors. Just as the people of the book would come to wash away the brilliant tapastry of parable, myth, ritual and identity found throughout the west and north, so too has the great Pheonetian civilization in north Africa: Carthage, are so clensed. But as with all the distruction of our more robust cultural inherentice by the Judeo-Christian singularity, we hardly even know what we’ve lost. In this book, Miles scours historical and archaeological evidence to scrape together a brief, blurry look at a civilation that could have been as germinal to our modern lives as Rome. Why, when within sight of the walls of Rome, did Hannibal turn away?! And if not for that failure, would there have been a fall in the west (Dark Ages), the battle of the Milne Bridge (Jesus), the rise of Augustus (autocratic concervatism)?”
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Max (4 out of 5 stars)