Romans

Romans do nothing by halves - nowhere is the espresso more bitter, the monuments as grandiose, the intrigue so ancient and the style as contrived. In this book, the author, a former correspondent, shows readers the true Rome and the true Romans. The book provides an evocative mixture of history, literature, and politics, including diarists and commentators to chronicle almost every generation of Roman hedonism and decay.

Here is the Rome of the Popes, of a poet who loathed priests - Shelley, his wife and their son - in happiness and in tragedy. Here too are the city's intimitable railways, its innumerable cats. Sheridan the historian unravels the curious story of Mussloini's son-in-law and the British ambassador and as befits his period as a leading newspaper correspondent, new thoughts on Don Giulio Andreotti, seven times Prime Minister, as well as the Moro and Calvi affairs and other scandals.