madsanne_'s review
challenging
informative
medium-paced
3.0
Would have given four starts if it weren’t for the fact the author seems to forget the average person would have a difficult time keeping up with his writing style.
tahlia_reads_and_knits's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
tense
medium-paced
2.0
The main part of the book is quite good; interesting, informative, and well written.
In spite of me enjoying the bulk of the book, the author makes a number of mistakes that ruined the book for me by the end. The author makes the mistake of pulling modern figures into a history book before they have completed their lives and no further mistakes or redeeming actions can be made. This causes the book to age badly in certain areas, especially where Germanicus and Aggripina the Elder are compared to Harry & Meghan (the book was released in 2017; this definitely did not age well). The other issue was the proposed thesis at the beginning of the book for the last chapter. I strived to keep an open mind, although I very much dislike modern American political opinions (or any political views) being forced upon me in a history book on antiquity (or any time).
The book's main flaw is that it chooses to compare a modern day politician to Caligula. And the bias shows. It's quite unfair to compare any modern day American politician - no matter how disliked - to Caligula, who would vindictively kill others or order them to kill themselves. The author goes to far. It's a shame. This book was good except at the end. A history book really, really needs to leave modern & living figures out of the book. Especially in such an overblown comparison to a politician who does not literally cause others' deaths in the way Caligula did.
Most politicians seem to be narcissists on some level or another; that does not make most politicians comparable to Caligula. I wish that the description of the book had let me know the thesis of the last chapter of the book beforehand; I would not have purchased it. I don't read history for the author to ram their political views down my throat. I like to think I'm intelligent enough to make connections myself if they exist. The last chapter has left a bad taste in my mouth.
This kind of dramatic hyperbole is like comparing everyone one doesn't like to nazis. It's ridiculous. If you can stomach the last chapter, this book is great... or if you skip the last chapter altogether.
Dear authors of history books,
If you decide that you are a political pundit as well as a historian, please at least be honest about that in the description of your book. Not everyone who reads about ancient history desires to read about modern American politics; some of us read to escape that or -- shockingly -- aren't American, and might not care to have America sprinkled into everything.
Yours truly,
A Disgruntled Reader
In spite of me enjoying the bulk of the book, the author makes a number of mistakes that ruined the book for me by the end. The author makes the mistake of pulling modern figures into a history book before they have completed their lives and no further mistakes or redeeming actions can be made. This causes the book to age badly in certain areas, especially where Germanicus and Aggripina the Elder are compared to Harry & Meghan (the book was released in 2017; this definitely did not age well). The other issue was the proposed thesis at the beginning of the book for the last chapter. I strived to keep an open mind, although I very much dislike modern American political opinions (or any political views) being forced upon me in a history book on antiquity (or any time).
The book's main flaw is that it chooses to compare a modern day politician to Caligula. And the bias shows. It's quite unfair to compare any modern day American politician - no matter how disliked - to Caligula, who would vindictively kill others or order them to kill themselves. The author goes to far. It's a shame. This book was good except at the end. A history book really, really needs to leave modern & living figures out of the book. Especially in such an overblown comparison to a politician who does not literally cause others' deaths in the way Caligula did.
Most politicians seem to be narcissists on some level or another; that does not make most politicians comparable to Caligula. I wish that the description of the book had let me know the thesis of the last chapter of the book beforehand; I would not have purchased it. I don't read history for the author to ram their political views down my throat. I like to think I'm intelligent enough to make connections myself if they exist. The last chapter has left a bad taste in my mouth.
This kind of dramatic hyperbole is like comparing everyone one doesn't like to nazis. It's ridiculous. If you can stomach the last chapter, this book is great... or if you skip the last chapter altogether.
Dear authors of history books,
If you decide that you are a political pundit as well as a historian, please at least be honest about that in the description of your book. Not everyone who reads about ancient history desires to read about modern American politics; some of us read to escape that or -- shockingly -- aren't American, and might not care to have America sprinkled into everything.
Yours truly,
A Disgruntled Reader
elturko64's review against another edition
5.0
Super fascinating. It is full of interesting facts and tidbits of Caligula's life. I really didn't know much about Caligula before this book but now I'm very interested to know more about Roman history
anotherchristmas's review
2.0
I read this for my undergraduate senior thesis, which is on Caligula, and... holy shit.
The author unironically claimed that Tiberius was a pedophile that forced Caligula to have gay sex as a boy. Are you actually kidding me? The author picks and chooses what he wants to present from primary sources. He claims that Caligula engaging in incest with his sisters is just simply slander and probably didn't happen... then turns around and takes Tiberius being a "pedophile" at face value? Even though sources like Suetonius say that he was on Capri with scholars and philosophers, not little boys in a pleasure garden? Are you KIDDING me? I actually laughed at loud when I read those parts.
Also, some parts were written with an almost narrative quality. He fabricated dialogue between certain historical figures, which (though admittedly makes it more compelling to read) does not have much of a place in biography, in my opinion. At least not ancient biography. Biographies on more modern figures have a wide variety of sources that can be used to piece together a story so well that you can make it have a narrative feel, but ancient sources are so scarce that to inject narrative just comes across as a fictional.
Dando-Collins is admittedly a good writer, just the information was... not good, at all. He should have just written a fictional book about Caligula if he wanted to say that Tiberius was a pedophile and put narrative scenes into his book. Did he get the idea of Tiberius being a pedophile from the 1979 pornographic movie Caligula? Because I genuinely don't know what ancient source even says that. Also -- the section of Caligula being compared to Trump. God. People need to stop doing that. They're both "bad" people, that's the closest comparison that can be made. Just because you know who Caligula is and want to flex your knowledge of ancient historical figures does NOT mean you should write an article saying that he is like Trump. Dando-Collins humors this, and lists all the comparisons between them, which are so vapid and surface level. I swear to God, one comparison is "they both like sports." Like... bro... stop...
Sorry if you ever see this review, Dando-Collins. I feel bad I'm tearing this biography apart. But I've done so much research on Caligula (and I'm an undergrad that's doing this thesis in only a few months!) that this book was borderline offensively wrong. I'm going to include it in my thesis on a discussion on the trap of writing modern biographies on Caligula. Thanks for the material, Dando-Collins. Your biography wasn't that bad, I'm just a nerd writing about ancient and modern depictions of Caligula and this is perfect for my biography section.
The author unironically claimed that Tiberius was a pedophile that forced Caligula to have gay sex as a boy. Are you actually kidding me? The author picks and chooses what he wants to present from primary sources. He claims that Caligula engaging in incest with his sisters is just simply slander and probably didn't happen... then turns around and takes Tiberius being a "pedophile" at face value? Even though sources like Suetonius say that he was on Capri with scholars and philosophers, not little boys in a pleasure garden? Are you KIDDING me? I actually laughed at loud when I read those parts.
Also, some parts were written with an almost narrative quality. He fabricated dialogue between certain historical figures, which (though admittedly makes it more compelling to read) does not have much of a place in biography, in my opinion. At least not ancient biography. Biographies on more modern figures have a wide variety of sources that can be used to piece together a story so well that you can make it have a narrative feel, but ancient sources are so scarce that to inject narrative just comes across as a fictional.
Dando-Collins is admittedly a good writer, just the information was... not good, at all. He should have just written a fictional book about Caligula if he wanted to say that Tiberius was a pedophile and put narrative scenes into his book. Did he get the idea of Tiberius being a pedophile from the 1979 pornographic movie Caligula? Because I genuinely don't know what ancient source even says that. Also -- the section of Caligula being compared to Trump. God. People need to stop doing that. They're both "bad" people, that's the closest comparison that can be made. Just because you know who Caligula is and want to flex your knowledge of ancient historical figures does NOT mean you should write an article saying that he is like Trump. Dando-Collins humors this, and lists all the comparisons between them, which are so vapid and surface level. I swear to God, one comparison is "they both like sports." Like... bro... stop...
Sorry if you ever see this review, Dando-Collins. I feel bad I'm tearing this biography apart. But I've done so much research on Caligula (and I'm an undergrad that's doing this thesis in only a few months!) that this book was borderline offensively wrong. I'm going to include it in my thesis on a discussion on the trap of writing modern biographies on Caligula. Thanks for the material, Dando-Collins. Your biography wasn't that bad, I'm just a nerd writing about ancient and modern depictions of Caligula and this is perfect for my biography section.
anotherchristmas's review against another edition
2.0
I read this for my undergraduate senior thesis, which is on Caligula, and... holy shit.
The author unironically claimed that Tiberius was a pedophile that forced Caligula to have gay sex as a boy. Are you actually kidding me? The author picks and chooses what he wants to present from primary sources. He claims that Caligula engaging in incest with his sisters is just simply slander and probably didn't happen... then turns around and takes Tiberius being a "pedophile" at face value? Even though sources like Suetonius say that he was on Capri with scholars and philosophers, not little boys in a pleasure garden? Are you KIDDING me? I actually laughed at loud when I read those parts.
Also, some parts were written with an almost narrative quality. He fabricated dialogue between certain historical figures, which (though admittedly makes it more compelling to read) does not have much of a place in biography, in my opinion. At least not ancient biography. Biographies on more modern figures have a wide variety of sources that can be used to piece together a story so well that you can make it have a narrative feel, but ancient sources are so scarce that to inject narrative just comes across as a fictional.
Dando-Collins is admittedly a good writer, just the information was... not good, at all. He should have just written a fictional book about Caligula if he wanted to say that Tiberius was a pedophile and put narrative scenes into his book. Did he get the idea of Tiberius being a pedophile from the 1979 pornographic movie Caligula? Because I genuinely don't know what ancient source even says that. Also -- the section of Caligula being compared to Trump. God. People need to stop doing that. They're both "bad" people, that's the closest comparison that can be made. Just because you know who Caligula is and want to flex your knowledge of ancient historical figures does NOT mean you should write an article saying that he is like Trump. Dando-Collins humors this, and lists all the comparisons between them, which are so vapid and surface level. I swear to God, one comparison is "they both like sports." Like... bro... stop...
Sorry if you ever see this review, Dando-Collins. I feel bad I'm tearing this biography apart. But I've done so much research on Caligula (and I'm an undergrad that's doing this thesis in only a few months!) that this book was borderline offensively wrong. I'm going to include it in my thesis on a discussion on the trap of writing modern biographies on Caligula. Thanks for the material, Dando-Collins. Your biography wasn't that bad, I'm just a nerd writing about ancient and modern depictions of Caligula and this is perfect for my biography section.
The author unironically claimed that Tiberius was a pedophile that forced Caligula to have gay sex as a boy. Are you actually kidding me? The author picks and chooses what he wants to present from primary sources. He claims that Caligula engaging in incest with his sisters is just simply slander and probably didn't happen... then turns around and takes Tiberius being a "pedophile" at face value? Even though sources like Suetonius say that he was on Capri with scholars and philosophers, not little boys in a pleasure garden? Are you KIDDING me? I actually laughed at loud when I read those parts.
Also, some parts were written with an almost narrative quality. He fabricated dialogue between certain historical figures, which (though admittedly makes it more compelling to read) does not have much of a place in biography, in my opinion. At least not ancient biography. Biographies on more modern figures have a wide variety of sources that can be used to piece together a story so well that you can make it have a narrative feel, but ancient sources are so scarce that to inject narrative just comes across as a fictional.
Dando-Collins is admittedly a good writer, just the information was... not good, at all. He should have just written a fictional book about Caligula if he wanted to say that Tiberius was a pedophile and put narrative scenes into his book. Did he get the idea of Tiberius being a pedophile from the 1979 pornographic movie Caligula? Because I genuinely don't know what ancient source even says that. Also -- the section of Caligula being compared to Trump. God. People need to stop doing that. They're both "bad" people, that's the closest comparison that can be made. Just because you know who Caligula is and want to flex your knowledge of ancient historical figures does NOT mean you should write an article saying that he is like Trump. Dando-Collins humors this, and lists all the comparisons between them, which are so vapid and surface level. I swear to God, one comparison is "they both like sports." Like... bro... stop...
Sorry if you ever see this review, Dando-Collins. I feel bad I'm tearing this biography apart. But I've done so much research on Caligula (and I'm an undergrad that's doing this thesis in only a few months!) that this book was borderline offensively wrong. I'm going to include it in my thesis on a discussion on the trap of writing modern biographies on Caligula. Thanks for the material, Dando-Collins. Your biography wasn't that bad, I'm just a nerd writing about ancient and modern depictions of Caligula and this is perfect for my biography section.
ederwin's review
4.0
He was "bad, and dangerous to know," but was he "mad?" Probably not. Perhaps a little bit of temporal lobe epilepsy or bipolar issues, or something else which we will never know for sure, but not insane.
Others have made this argument before. For example [b:Caligula: A Biography|4891709|Caligula A Biography|Aloys Winterling|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348948693l/4891709._SY75_.jpg|4957145]. That book is great, but focuses almost entirely on his adult life.
This book examines the whole drama-filled life of Gaius "Caligula" and his family; and boy, what a life! The fact that he didn't go insane is almost surprising. The fact that he was paranoid and cruel is no surprise at all; he wouldn't have survived otherwise.
Popular stories of him, like [b:I, Claudius|18765|I, Claudius (Claudius, #1)|Robert Graves|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388185810l/18765._SY75_.jpg|4232388], exaggerate his behavior, and even invent false episodes. But there is no need for that. The real stories are wild enough. (The falsifications started very early, so there is always some doubt about what exactly happened. But we do know that he did not, for example, impregnate his sister and then kill the fetus. That is pure drama.)
If you know nothing about Rome in AD 1-50, then this might be a tough starting point. There are so many characters and they have so many similar-sounding names. But if you know of and can keep track of the most important characters, this is one hell of a story.
The final chapter compares characters from ancient Rome to contemporary American politics. I could do without that chapter, as I can make my own comparisons. Still, the book as a whole is highly recommended.
(Since I read an uncorrected advance copy, I will not comment on any errors I noticed, as they may be fixed before publication.)
Others have made this argument before. For example [b:Caligula: A Biography|4891709|Caligula A Biography|Aloys Winterling|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348948693l/4891709._SY75_.jpg|4957145]. That book is great, but focuses almost entirely on his adult life.
This book examines the whole drama-filled life of Gaius "Caligula" and his family; and boy, what a life! The fact that he didn't go insane is almost surprising. The fact that he was paranoid and cruel is no surprise at all; he wouldn't have survived otherwise.
Popular stories of him, like [b:I, Claudius|18765|I, Claudius (Claudius, #1)|Robert Graves|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388185810l/18765._SY75_.jpg|4232388], exaggerate his behavior, and even invent false episodes. But there is no need for that. The real stories are wild enough. (The falsifications started very early, so there is always some doubt about what exactly happened. But we do know that he did not, for example, impregnate his sister and then kill the fetus. That is pure drama.)
If you know nothing about Rome in AD 1-50, then this might be a tough starting point. There are so many characters and they have so many similar-sounding names. But if you know of and can keep track of the most important characters, this is one hell of a story.
The final chapter compares characters from ancient Rome to contemporary American politics. I could do without that chapter, as I can make my own comparisons. Still, the book as a whole is highly recommended.
(Since I read an uncorrected advance copy, I will not comment on any errors I noticed, as they may be fixed before publication.)
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