Product Description

In ancient Rome, parents used to silence misbehaving children with the utterance 'Hannibal ad portas' (Hannibal is at the door). Such was the fear and awe that Hannibal Barca instilled...Told in arcing, epic technicolour, this is the story of one of the ancient world's most remarkable figures and the long, bloody conflict between the two 'superpowers' of the times - the Second Punic War (218-202BC) - that hinged on the genius, the ambition and the personal tragedies of Hannibal Barca of Carthage, whose military prowess became the stuff of legend, and Publius Scipio of Rome. History, of course, tells us the outcome: that Rome would be the victor, surviving to become a colossal imperial power, while Carthage would be all but erased from history. It was, however, a close run thing. And the world might have been a very different place had Hannibal succeeded in thwarting the might of Rome. "Pride of Carthage" is a sweeping, thrilling story of ancient warfare, of armies traversing frozen snow-covered mountains, of battles won or lost by brilliant generals fighting in ingenious, cunning ways. And it's a story teeming with superbly drawn, memorable characters and players, historical and imagined - from Numidian horsemen and the Roman legions to the slaves and freemen from all corners of the ancient Mediterranean world...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #154172 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 640 pages

TOM HOLLAND, author of RUBICON
'An extraordinary achievement:Durham puts flesh on the bones of Carthage'

NEW YORK TIMES
'Vividly captures the frenzy of ancient warfare..a skilfully structured and gripping novel'

JEFFREY LENT, author of LOST NATION
'Wonderful...not only deeply evocative of time and place, character and situation, but also lyrically written, compellingly composed...a masterpiece'

Customer Reviews

Enjoyable Read
Good blend of historical fiction with drama. At over 630 pages it won't be quickly read, yet it does capture the imagination. Perhaps better suited for reading on a commuter journey instead of a holiday, yet very enjoyable!

It's a couple years since I read it, but I stil love it...
This is the type of book that you have to settle in with for a while. A quick read it is NOT, but a worthwhile one it definitely is. You have to pay attention and get to know the characters, though. There are a lot of characters beyond Hannibal and his family, but they're not extraneous. They all add to the larger story and by the end almost all of them have had an impact on the main plot motion. They provide some the key moments that I think I'll always remember: when Imco finally comes face to face with Aradna, when Tusselo tosses away his cloak and reveals himself in the Roman Forum, when Masinissa discovers that his love affair is doomed... Great stuff. It's complex, but there really is an order to it all - a structure - that's impressive.

If you're a Pressfield fan you may or may not like this. You may like it because the action is great and the big battle scenes are spectacular. Durham writes them like there meant directly for the big screen. But on the other hand this isn't exactly a pro-war novel. It's kind of anti-war when it comes down to it. It's got depth of characterization and deals a lot with the fatigue and emotional misery of war. Unusually good. Not really the genre novel that the cover would make you think it is.

It's hard to believe this stuff actually happened. These people walked the earth. Our world has been effected by their deeds ever since. You can learn from what's in the pages of this book - although don't go thinking it's trying to be a history book. It's not, but he does get most of the important stuff right. And you can also loose yourself for days in a fantastic story. Either way, that's what I look for in a book. This time the author delivered.

Can we go into negative territory?
I don't believe that I could possibly belittle this book enough. Hannibal portrayed as a black African? The Punic Wars portrayed as a Euro-African struggle? Please, this is historical revisionism at its absolute worst! Mr. Durham obviously has his own political agenda and he is using this book to further it; besides the very high probability that Hannibal was not black, he was of Phoenician origin after all, on his web site Mr. Durham labeled the Romans as imperialistic. Are we to believe that the Carthaginians were a bunch of boy scouts? They were every bit as imperialistic as the Romans.

The First Punic War erupted because both Carthage and Rome coveted Greek Sicily, it was never about race. Additionally, Mr. Durham correctly points out that virtually all the accounts of Hannibal and Carthage come to us from Greek and Roman sources, and he is correct when he essentially states that the victors re-wrote history to suit their own needs, but in my own experience none of these historical sources have ever described Hannibal or the Carthaginians as black Africans. That is because, even though the ancient Romans were not free of bigotry, like the Greeks, the Romans tended to look down upon what they regarded as barbaric peoples and nations on the basis of what they perceived as a lack of culture, rather than undesirable skin color.

Mr. Durham states on his web site that the ancient writers had to gloss over the "genocide" that the Romans perpetrated on the Carthaginians at the end of the Third Punic War, and whereas what he states is certainly correct in a modern context, it was not terribly unusual in the ancient world. What he fails to acknowledge is that, very likely, Hannibal himself was to blame for what happened to Carthage, and that it was not in keeping with typical Roman practices. After all, and taking into account that no contemporary account of the Punic Wars survives from the Carthaginian side, Hannibal made no bones about his hatred of Rome and Romans.

The downplaying of Publius Scipius Africanus as a general at Zama is also remarkably self serving. Almost every excuse imaginable is presented why it was almost easy for Scipius to defeat Hannibal including comparing Hannibal to a tree that is already starting to fall. It rather sounds like the people that routinely downplay Wellington's defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo.

Mr. Durham also tries to gloss over the fact that the Carthaginians used mercenaries and that typically in their armies, only the officers were Carthaginians. He does correctly point out that he did have quite a large number of local volunteers that flocked to his banner once he was in Europe, but he downplays the contributions of these European troops by making it obvious that he believes that Hannibal's best troops were black and African.

To say that Mr. Durham is an irresponsible revisionist is putting it kindly. I could go on and on, but the saddest thing to say about this book and otherwise fine writer is that he could have breathed life into a fascinating historical figure, and instead chose to further his own Afro-centrist agenda; shame on you Mr. Durham!