LIVERIGHT S.P.Q.R: A History of Ancient Rome

All Gud

I started to read this book with a question in mind: "what distinguished the Roman empire from the rest, how did they rise while many others didn't?".On the positive side, the author is clearly super well versed on the topic, and shares an astonishing amount of findings and facts. However, these findings / facts were not presented in an easy to read way. I found the book to be very hard to read as I personally felt there was no coherent story or a natural flow.I also wasn't able to find the answer to my original question. If you read a few hundred books per year and/or are a massive Roman history fan this could make a nice addition, otherwise I'd pass.