Some books arrive with fanfares, others creep silently into the world – Philip Parker's The Empire Stops Here is one of the creepers. Part travelogue, part history, it is an exploration of the outer edges of the Roman Empire.
Reviewing it in the Guardian Review, Tom Holland writes "The result is a portrait of the empire very similar to some of the more impressive monuments that Parker visits."
Parker explains what compelled him to devote three years of his life to tramping the boundaries of one of the biggest empires history has ever known – a journey that took him through Europe, Africa and the Middle East. He reveals how distance saved Syria's governor from the wrath of Caligula, why counterfeiters in Switzerland did the state a service, and how a German schoolboy came to have a priceless silver urn stashed under his bed.
