The current conflicts in the Middle East are present-day manifestations of geopolitical dynamics that have been active in the historical process from its beginning. In 108 maps and drawings, THE EASTERN QUESTION looks at these dynamics through a geopolitical lens with a scope of three millennia, from the days of the Persians and Alexander the Great to today’s headlines. The drawings are historical political cartoons; the maps ground the reader in the geography of time and place.

The current conflicts in the Middle East are present-day manifestations of geopolitical dynamics that have been active in the historical process from its beginning. In 108 maps and drawings, THE EASTERN QUESTION looks at these dynamics through a geopolitical lens with a scope of three millennia, from the days of the Persians and Alexander the Great to today’s headlines. The drawings are historical political cartoons; the maps ground the reader in the geography of time and place.

The current conflicts in the Middle East are present-day manifestations of geopolitical dynamics that have been active in the historical process from its beginning. In 108 maps and drawings, THE EASTERN QUESTION looks at these dynamics through a geopolitical lens with a scope of three millennia, from the days of the Persians and Alexander the Great to today’s headlines. The drawings are historical political cartoons; the maps ground the reader in the geography of time and place.

In the 19th century, the term the "Eastern Question" referred to the problem posed by the impending dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the fall of which in the second decade of the 20th engendered the modern "muddle" of the Middle East in the 21st. In a larger sense the East has always been a question for the West, for the simple reason that’s where the trouble comes from: Huns, Goths, Arabs, Mongols, Turks, Russians, Soviets --- to now a less well-defined, "non-linear," and "asymmetric" trouble. As the West declines relatively and the East rises, seemingly new questions are asked that are in fact old ones.

When Thomas Jefferson became president in 1801, America was deeply in debt and needed its economy to grow quickly. But its merchant ships were under attack by pirates from North Africa’s Barbary coast who routinely captured American sailors and held them as slaves. In response, Jefferson sent the U.S. Navy’s new warships and a detachment of marines to blockade Tripoli --- launching the Barbary Wars and beginning America’s journey toward future superpower status.

When Thomas Jefferson became president in 1801, America was deeply in debt and needed its economy to grow quickly. But its merchant ships were under attack by pirates from North Africa’s Barbary coast who routinely captured American sailors and held them as slaves. In response, Jefferson sent the U.S. Navy’s new warships and a detachment of marines to blockade Tripoli --- launching the Barbary Wars and beginning America’s journey toward future superpower status.

When Thomas Jefferson became president in 1801, America was deeply in debt, with its economy and dignity under attack. Pirates from North Africa’s Barbary Coast routinely captured American merchant ships and held the sailors as slaves, demanding ransom and tribute payments far beyond what the new country could afford.

For 15 years, America had tried to work with the four Muslim powers (Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers and Morocco) driving the piracy, but negotiation proved impossible. Realizing it was time to stand up to the intimidation, Jefferson decided to move beyond diplomacy. He sent the U.S. Navy and Marines to blockade Tripoli --- launching the Barbary Wars and beginning America’s journey toward future superpower status.

Few today remember these men and other heroes who inspired the Marine Corps hymn: “From the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli, we fight our country’s battles in the air, on land and sea.” THOMAS JEFFERSON AND THE TRIPOLI PIRATES recaptures this forgotten war that changed American history with a real-life drama of intrigue, bravery and battle on the high seas.

Audiobook available, narrated by Brian Kilmeade

Ancient Rome was an imposing city even by modern standards, a sprawling imperial metropolis of more than a million inhabitants that served as the seat of power for an empire that spanned from Spain to Syria. Yet how did all this emerge from what was once an insignificant village in central Italy? In SPQR, world-renowned classicist Mary Beard narrates the unprecedented rise of a civilization that even 2,000 years later still shapes many of our most fundamental assumptions about power, citizenship, responsibility, political violence, empire, luxury and beauty.

Ancient Rome was an imposing city even by modern standards, a sprawling imperial metropolis of more than a million inhabitants that served as the seat of power for an empire that spanned from Spain to Syria. Yet how did all this emerge from what was once an insignificant village in central Italy? In SPQR, world-renowned classicist Mary Beard narrates the unprecedented rise of a civilization that even 2,000 years later still shapes many of our most fundamental assumptions about power, citizenship, responsibility, political violence, empire, luxury and beauty.

A sweeping, revisionist history of the Roman Empire from one of our foremost classicists.

Ancient Rome was an imposing city even by modern standards, a sprawling imperial metropolis of more than a million inhabitants, a "mixture of luxury and filth, liberty and exploitation, civic pride and murderous civil war" that served as the seat of power for an empire that spanned from Spain to Syria. Yet how did all this emerge from what was once an insignificant village in central Italy? In S.P.Q.R., world-renowned classicist Mary Beard narrates the unprecedented rise of a civilization that even two thousand years later still shapes many of our most fundamental assumptions about power, citizenship, responsibility, political violence, empire, luxury and beauty.

From the foundational myth of Romulus and Remus to 212 ce --- nearly a thousand years later --- when the emperor Caracalla gave Roman citizenship to every free inhabitant of the empire, S.P.Q.R. (the abbreviation of "The Senate and People of Rome") examines not just how we think of ancient Rome but challenges the comfortable historical perspectives that have existed for centuries by exploring how the Romans thought of themselves: how they challenged the idea of imperial rule, how they responded to terrorism and revolution, and how they invented a new idea of citizenship and nation.

Opening the book in 63 bce with the famous clash between the populist aristocrat Catiline and Cicero, the renowned politician and orator, Beard animates this “terrorist conspiracy,” which was aimed at the very heart of the Republic, demonstrating how this singular event would presage the struggle between democracy and autocracy that would come to define much of Rome’s subsequent history. Illustrating how a classical democracy yielded to a self-confident and self-critical empire, S.P.Q.R. reintroduces us, though in a wholly different way, to famous and familiar characters --- Hannibal, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Augustus and Nero, among others --- while expanding the historical aperture to include those overlooked in traditional histories: the women, the slaves and ex-slaves, conspirators, and those on the losing side of Rome’s glorious conquests.

Like the best detectives, Beard sifts fact from fiction, myth and propaganda from historical record, refusing either simple admiration or blanket condemnation. Far from being frozen in marble, Roman history, she shows, is constantly being revised and rewritten as our knowledge expands. Indeed, our perceptions of ancient Rome have changed dramatically over the last 50 years, and S.P.Q.R., with its nuanced attention to class inequality, democratic struggles, and the lives of entire groups of people omitted from the historical narrative for centuries, promises to shape our view of Roman history for decades to come.