Caesar

Rating:
Summary: Indepth yet a hard to read.
Review: After reaading this book, I have to say that at times it may be a hard read for the casual reader. This book is well researched and is very enlightning. However, the translation from German is a bit confusing at times. I would recomend it to someone who knows a little bit about Roman society and is somewhat more knowlegable on Ceaser already.

Rating:
Summary: Highly recommend for history buffs.
Review: Although not for everyone I thought Meier did a thorough job on the life of Caesar and the late Republic. At times his writing seems a bit tedious and overwrought, but well worth the read. Meier digs deep into the forces that shaped Caesar and his conflict with the late republic. I enjoyed his frequent commentaries and extrapolations when all is not clear. I feel it helps one to think and form their own opinion on the events at hand. I highly recommend.

Rating:
Summary: Thorough, but turgid
Review: An admirably thorough book greatly diminished in impact by an unbearably dull writing style. This is a book for academics rather laymen interested in Caesar. When one has recently read history written by someone such as AJP Taylor, it is impossible to read a book as plodding as Meier's 'Caesar'.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating; not for a casual reading
Review: Caesar, by Christian Meier is a no nonsense treatise on the life of Julius Caesar and the political maelstrom which surrounded it. Here, Meier strips the veneer away to show a man truly great, but also truly flawed.

From Caesars birth to the inevitable Ides of March, Meier educates, analyzes, and explains the person, the time, and the place with remarkable skill and detail. This isn't an edge-of-your-seat sort of reading experience. Instead, it is a comfortably patient, thought provoking book of tremendous scholarly value. Meier artfully avoids a teleological viewpoint striving successfully to explain what Caesar, Cicero, Cato, Pompey, et al, thought and saw then. We note clearly that their experience was much different than what we might see through 2000+ years of reflection.

Of particular interest is the juxtaposition between the Republic of Rome and Caesar. His thirst for recognition and the weakness of the Senate to shunt it presents paradox after paradox as Caesar struggles to control the political game. In the end, both Senate and Caesar submit to an undesired civil war. From there, the power struggle continues as does the edification of the reader.

Though the book may plod in places, these instances are brief and rare. It is well worth the time of any serious reader interested in early Rome and one of the most famous men in recorded history.

Rating:
Summary: Well told.
Review: Caesar, by Christian Meier is a no nonsense treatise on the life of Julius Caesar and the political maelstrom which surrounded it. Here, Meier strips the veneer away to show a man truly great, but also truly flawed.

From Caesars birth to the inevitable Ides of March, Meier educates, analyzes, and explains the person, the time, and the place with remarkable skill and detail. This isn't an edge-of-your-seat sort of reading experience. Instead, it is a comfortably patient, thought provoking book of tremendous scholarly value. Meier artfully avoids a teleological viewpoint striving successfully to explain what Caesar, Cicero, Cato, Pompey, et al, thought and saw then. We note clearly that their experience was much different than what we might see through 2000+ years of reflection.

Of particular interest is the juxtaposition between the Republic of Rome and Caesar. His thirst for recognition and the weakness of the Senate to shunt it presents paradox after paradox as Caesar struggles to control the political game. In the end, both Senate and Caesar submit to an undesired civil war. From there, the power struggle continues as does the edification of the reader.

Though the book may plod in places, these instances are brief and rare. It is well worth the time of any serious reader interested in early Rome and one of the most famous men in recorded history.

Rating:
Summary: More than a biography , a treatise in political science
Review: Caesear by Meier is a really amazing book. .... I have a huge library on Rome history, to which field I have dedicated an entire life, so I perhaps have some ground to say this is the very best book about the period ever written to date.

Rating:
Summary: a tour-de-force
Review: Few biographies place their protagonist so carefully within his world, the Roman Republic during its transition to a despotism. This book is beautifully written but, like most translations, it is difficult to know whether to credit the author or translator. If, like me, you are not necessarily well read on Rome generally and the institutions of the Republic and early empire, it would, it seems to me, be difficult to find a better guide to the historical period than this book which examines so far as the record allows the life of the most prominent citizen of the era.

Rating:
Summary: Very good
Review: First of all I would like to mention that I read this book in German language, so I couldn't tell about the english translation. I'm a "hobby-historian" and until now this was the very best history book I ever read. In particular the chapter about the education in Rom I found very interesting/enlightening and in general I think that Meier has the ability to bring this ancient times "alive" (sorry for my un-eligant lenguage, I have still trouble with my english). Even though it was very dificult to understand sometimes and I had to re-read many parts, I got great benefits and understanding out of this book. I think it is helpfull to have a general knowlegde about Roman Republik and Ceasar before reading this book. In general I recomend this book to anybody eventhough it is more complicated and dificult to understand than maybe other Historiebook.

Rating:
Summary: Fine work, but somewhat distracted
Review: Fully in keeping with modern historical outlooks, Meier's Caesar is a man embedded in his times. As a result much of this otherwise excellent work is devoted to describing and analyzing those times. For readers familiar with the Republic, he has some interesting observations to make on the nature of the Republic and its ruling elite, but these digressions can become distracting and frustrating. Increasingly, I found myself wanting to know more about what Caesar was doing, not Cato or Cicero or Pompey. Also, I found his notion of the "two realities" (one for the Republic, one for Caesar) a bit trendy and unconvincing. Despite these criticisms, it is a good book and a very useful overview not just of Caesar but the entire Late Republic.

Rating:
Summary: Dense but often illuminating
Review: Having some familiarity already with Roman history, I probably did not suffer as many may do reading this book if they do not know already the outlines of the era. Meier has the weaknesses of the Germanic intellect: he is longwinded, dense, and fuzzy at the edges, sometime rhapsodizing incoherently for pages about Some Big Concept he has contrived to explain Caesar's force and character. On the other hand, some of his ideas are compellng, especially his elaborate (and thematic) treatment of The Outsider as exemplified by Marius and Sulla, both of whom later served as models for Caesar.

But certain things are just fudged over, and left unclear. I only discovered by reading at the same time in Finley Hooper's "Roman Realities" (o.p.; get it out of the library) that Clodius, who was a wild man and sometime ally/enemy of Caesar, as well as Cicero and others, was the same Clodius who forced Caesar to divorce his wife Pompeia when Clodius allegedly tried to seduce her by dressing as a female slave and infiltrating Caesar's house. This is only symptomatic. The whole Catilinarian conspiracy is similarly befogged with intrigue, which of course it was at the time; but it is the duty of the historian to clarify such events.

All in all, I much prefer Michael Grant's book on Caesar, which is now o.p. too. However, it was shorter, more succinct, and not as rich in speculation as Meier's. This book is very thought-provoking at times, but don't rely on it to give you a coherent picture of this time. For Caesar's remarkable personality, though, it's probably the best.