Rating: 
Summary: Solid, but not spectacular
Review: This is a standard biography of Cicero's life, written well to meet those aims. Everitt drops in nice tidbits of Roman life--shopping malls, insurance-arson scams, and Vestigial Virgin drag queens--but this biography lacks both A.) historical perspective and B.) philosophical perspective on Cicero. Someone who knows little of Cicero before reading this book, would not know a whole more about Cicero's worldview. We learn that he believed in the representative Republic, in some degree of personal freedom--but he also believed in deterministic, pantheistic Stoicism. How could these be reconciled? How is determinism and liberty compatible? How is determinism and virtue compatible? How could these beliefs impact the Founding Fathers? This is what lacks from the book--why Cicero's beliefs led to his life, and why his life led to the Enlightenment.This book nonetheless does it's basic job, and the portrayals of Cato, Pompey, Caesar, and Octavian are strong. Cato comes off as the noble idealist--as Cicero would have seen him--and the emperors and would-be emperors come off as the practical power mongerers that they probably were. Crassus and Cataline are like cartoonish villains, yet, by their idiotic deeds and schemes they might have been. This would be a good book simply to flesh out one's knowledge of a time slowly being forgotten in the Postmodern West.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Biography
Review: This book provides valuable insight into the culture of Rome at the time Cicero lived. It also is perhaps one of the most interesting biographies of Cicero to date. It reads like a novel, as a good history book should, but is also detailed in its account of the life of one of history's greatest statesmen and orators.
Rating:
Summary: Everitt v. Rawson
Review: There are many able and thoughtful reviews of this bestseller below. Rather than rehash the common themes -- namely that "Cicero" is well-written but a bit shallow (I happen to agree) -- I've decided to use this review to assess Everitt's work against the last popular biography on the great Roman statesman and philosopher, Elizabeth Rawson's "Cicero: A Portrait," which is regarded by many Roman scholars as the finest ever written. With diligence and a little bit of luck I was able to obtain a copy of Rawson on the Internet. I decided to read the two books concurrently to discover why many learned readers hold her book in so much higher regard than Everitt's.
Keeping with the spirit of a head-to-head competition, first let us consider the "tale of the tape." The paperback versions of both books are remarkably similar is structure, organization and length. That is, both are chronological narratives organized into seventeen chapters and just over 300 pages in length (it should be noted that the font and margins in Rawson are smaller, so "Portrait" is roughly 20% longer in terms of wordcount). Clearly, then, Everitt's relative weakness isn't excessive brevity or an unorthodox and ineffective approach to Cicero's life.
Much to my surprise, these books turned out to be just as similar in content as they were in size. Rawson certainly does a more thorough job of analyzing Cicero's philosophical works and her book ends with an excellent but brief review of Cicero's legacy, but overall Everitt's prose is more lucid and he excels Rawson in his ability to capture the pulse of life in Republican Rome (his descriptions of the traditional Roman marriage ceremony and assembly voting procedures are especially noteworthy). Rawson doesn't quote from Cicero's writings or letters to Atticus any more extensively than Everitt -- indeed, Everitt's choice of quotes are so precisely similar to Rawson's that it almost raises some suspicions. In sum, because these books are so close in every way I feel that Everitt's is superior simply because it is more readable (not to mention far easier to find and purchase).
In closing, I'd like to echo the frequent comment that this book isn't a deep and penetrating study of Cicero and his times, such as Meier's biography of Caesar. It wasn't meant to be. It is targeted to a wide audience and succeeds exceptionally well at bringing Rome and one of its most remarkable figures to the average reader. In a world where many of the liberal arts graduates of our leading universities never touch Cicero or Polybius or Livy or Thucydides and probably couldn't tell you whether the Greeks or Romans came first, I can't help but think that books like this are at least a step in the right direction toward stimulating public interest in the classics. Ideally, "Cicero" will inspire young students or the merely intellectually curious to read some of Cicero's writings or pursue more substantial works on the Republican Rome or the ancient world in general. As someone who didn't "discover" the ancients until graduate school and then developed a passion for them, I can only hope that books like this will make a few converts along the way.
Rating: 
Summary: Maybe the worst thing i've ever read....
Review: This book was so boring. It did have a lot of dry details. The writing is confusing b/c time seems to not move in a straight line in this biography. Cicero comes off a pompous jerk and a completely unlikable character. I couldn't even finish this book it was so bad. I was forced to read it and I can't finish it. This book put me to sleep. Unless you're looking for a sleeping pill, leave this book on the shelf.
Rating:
Summary: Solid, but not spectacular
Review: This is a standard biography of Cicero's life, written well to meet those aims. Everitt drops in nice tidbits of Roman life--shopping malls, insurance-arson scams, and Vestigial Virgin drag queens--but this biography lacks both A.) historical perspective and B.) philosophical perspective on Cicero. Someone who knows little of Cicero before reading this book, would not know a whole more about Cicero's worldview. We learn that he believed in the representative Republic, in some degree of personal freedom--but he also believed in deterministic, pantheistic Stoicism. How could these be reconciled? How is determinism and liberty compatible? How is determinism and virtue compatible? How could these beliefs impact the Founding Fathers? This is what lacks from the book--why Cicero's beliefs led to his life, and why his life led to the Enlightenment. This book nonetheless does it's basic job, and the portrayals of Cato, Pompey, Caesar, and Octavian are strong. Cato comes off as the noble idealist--as Cicero would have seen him--and the emperors and would-be emperors come off as the practical power mongerers that they probably were. Crassus and Cataline are like cartoonish villains, yet, by their idiotic deeds and schemes they might have been. This would be a good book simply to flesh out one's knowledge of a time slowly being forgotten in the Postmodern West.
Rating:
Summary: Reads like a novel
Review: Anthony Everitt has written a highly readable biography of Cicero that has appeal to a general reader and specialists in Roman history. Mr. Everitt's writes passionately about his subject but also recognizes Cicero's faults and failings. I was relieved that Mr. Everitt did not give us extended quotations from Cicero's letters and other works. I have read biographies were the author has relied too heavily on extended quotations from his subject: Mr. Everitt relates Cicero's life in his own words. The book is also well paced with each chapter covering a particular aspect of Cicero's life. For readers new to the study of ancient history, Mr. Everitt includes digressions on Roman marriage ceremonies, the administration of the Roman State administration, what a triumph was and other subjects. I was acquainted with these facts but enjoyed reading them and did not find them intrusive. Mr. Everitt knows Cicero and speaks eloquently on the life of his subject and the period in which he lived. The author provides good background on other important figures in Cicero's life, such as Caesar, Marc Antony, and Sulla, including Cicero's family and his long relationship with Atticus and Pompey. Mr. Everitt, instinctively, know how much detail to include in his book so that the reader is satisfied and not assailed by facts. This is a book that does not disappoint and one that is hard to put down.
Rating: 
Summary: Cicero Meets Biography on A&E
Review: Anthony Everitt's biography of Cicero is a fine yet pedestrian account of the ancient politician. In almost every respects, it could serve as the basis for an A&E or History Channel documentary; it outlines the basic facts, presents a scandal or two, but does nothing to engage the mind or reveal deep truths about the human condition. This book is neither insightful nor provocative, like Christian Meier's Caesar. Nor does Everitt adequately explain why Cicero held such a fascination for generations to come, including (if not especially) our own founding fathers, John Adams in particular. And for a biography about a man best remembered for his writings, precious little space is spent discussing Cicero's written ideas. One gets more of a sense of Cicero as a person from Colleen McCullough's fictional Masters of Rome series. That's the negative. The positive is that Everitt's account is well-presented and the events surrounding Cicero's life are inherently interesting. Everitt particularly shines in depicting Cicero's activities after Caesar's assassination, arguing that for the few short months left to his life Cicero was the preeminent man of the hour - mainly because he was the last one of the elder generation left standing. The bottom line is that Everitt's Cicero is a book that nobody should regret reading. It's a fine review of the end of the Roman Republic, and a good refresher course for those who maybe haven't visited Ancient Rome in a while. Those looking for some substance, however, and those who are serious Roman scholars, will be disappointed.
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