Review: Nero (Jacob Abbott)

Nero by Jacob Abbott

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


And here I thought Nero was one of the good guys....yeah right. This book takes you inside the life and times of one of the most notoriously monstrous (dare I say beastly) emperors of history. The book was very enlightening for me in a history I only had a small amount of real historical knowledge of to begin with. We all hear some of the horror stories about Nero, but this provided a better look in the situations around him at the time.

I think what may have brought this book to even more of a reality for me, was during the past few weeks of reading this, I went and watched some shows dealing with these times in history. I forged my way through Caligula, a movie I had not seen since about 1985, and then I watched some episode of the newer series on cable called Spartacus (I warn you, this is a very graphic, very vulgar show, but I assume fairly realistic to the time frame at and). Combining these visual presentations with the insights of the story, I could almost feel myself being within the world of the book at time.

Overall, a great story. Easy to read and understand (if you could keep the various character's names sorted out), and a wild ride through the life of the beast as he was called.



View all my reviews