Carthage: A New History

Eve MacDonald

Book cover for Carthage: A New History
Image for variant 9781324123279
Book cover for Carthage: A New History
Image for variant 9781324123279

Carthage: A New History

Carthage: A New History

Eve MacDonald

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Description

For six hundred years, the city of Carthage dominated the western Mediterranean. Founded in the ninth century BCE as a small colonial outpost, by the third, it had grown into the area's largest, richest empire. When, inevitably, it clashed with Rome for supremacy over the region, the conflict spanned over one century, three wars, and forty-three years of active fighting. After Carthage fell at last, the city was razed, and the tale of its defeat became a mere foundation stone in Rome's legend. But in this landmark new history--the first in over a decade--rising-star ancient historian Eve MacDonald restores the story of Carthage and its people to its rightful place in the history of the ancient world, reclaiming a lost culture long overshadowed by Roman mythmaking.

Drawing on brand-new archaeological analysis to uncover the history behind the legend, MacDonald takes readers on a journey from the Phoenician Levant of the early Iron Age to the Atlantic and all along the shores of Africa. She reveals ancient Carthage as a cosmopolitan city not only of extraordinary wealth and brave warriors, but also of staggering beauty and technological sophistication. Home to Hannibal and Dido, to war elephants and vast fleets, at its height Carthage commanded one of the ancient world's greatest navies and controlled territory spanning the coast of northwestern Africa to modern-day Spain, Sardinia, Sicily, and beyond. In gripping narrative, MacDonald shows how and why the Romans came to so fear Carthage, as one of the few rivals ever to inflict multiple defeats upon them--and what the world lost when it was finally gone.

Reclaimed from the Romans, Carthage is a dramatic tale from the other side of history--revealing that, without Carthage, there would be no Rome, and no modern world as we know it.

Critical Reviews

Epic...More than two millennia after its destruction, Carthage now has its Iliad.--Martyn Rady, author of The Habsburgs

An important and much-needed reorientation of the 'familiar' ancient historical narrative. Eve MacDonald persuasively demonstrates how North Africa was once a central node of civilization...and that there was nothing inevitable about the supremacy of Rome while the Carthaginians were around. This is not only history reclaimed; this is history at its best.--Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, author of Persians

Admirably lucid...[Eve MacDonald] has the merit of brevity and a no-nonsense command of her material.--Pratinav Anil "The Times (UK)"

Not so much revisionist as expansionist...[Eve MacDonald] succeeds in creating a thickly layered portrait...Enjoyable and readily digestible.--Daisy Dunn "The Telegraph"

Deploying the latest archaeological discoveries with deep and revealing research, Eve MacDonald's Carthage shines welcome new light on the ancient origins and trajectory of the mysterious North African empire that challenged Rome's power in the Mediterranean.--Adrienne Mayor, author of The Amazons

Eve MacDonald's important new book puts Carthage, at last, at the center of its own tale. The narrative that emerges is both deeply researched history...and, at the same time, epic in its sweep--and a long-awaited riposte to Rome's monopoly on the history of its conquests.--Emily Hauser, author of Penelope's Bones

[I]lluminating. . . . [Eve MacDonald] cannily contemplates the effect the defeat of Carthage had on the West's future attitudes toward colonization. The result is a thorough, up-to-date account of the little-regarded but once mighty civilization.-- "Publishers Weekly"

Publishing Information

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Pub date: 2026-01-13
Length: 368 pages

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