You can accuse me of fraternal bias, but Pax: War and Peace in Rome’s Golden Age (Little, Brown), the third volume in my brother Tom’s Rome series, is every bit as brilliant as the previous two. From the year of the four emperors to the golden age of Trajan and Hadrian, he brings this familiar yet unfamiliar world vividly to light more thought-provokingly and vividly than anyone else writing on this period. At the heart lies Rome itself, the great glittering city of the empire – but the tentacles of this book stretch far further. Fascinating and captivating in equal measure.