Josephine Quinn | The New York Review of Books

The Thrill of Late Antiquity

The historian Peter Brown’s memoir recounts an academic career that has taken him from Oxford to Iran to California, in a nostalgic portrait of twentieth-century academic life that can still offer a primer to young scholars.

Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History

by Peter Brown

March 7, 2024 issue

Alphabet Politics

What prompted the development of systems of writing?

The Greatest Invention: A History of the World in Nine Mysterious Scripts

by Silvia Ferrara, translated from the Italian by Todd Portnowitz

Inventing the Alphabet: The Origins of Letters from Antiquity to the Present

by Johanna Drucker

January 19, 2023 issue

Ravenna Between East and West

It has been a barbarian city, a holy city, a woman’s city, and a city ruled by Romans, Huns, Goths, Greeks, and bishops.

Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe

by Judith Herrin

July 22, 2021 issue

Mothers and Emperors

Domina: The Women Who Made Imperial Rome

by Guy de la Bédoyère

January 16, 2020 issue

Caesar Bloody Caesar

In Rome, as in Gaul, human rights were nonexistent, and life was cheap

The Landmark Julius Caesar: The Complete Works: Gallic War, Civil War, Alexandrian War, African War, and Spanish War

edited and translated from the Latin by Kurt A. Raaflaub

March 22, 2018 issue