JO'D in the TLS

The Ruin of the Roman Empire is a "Book of the Year" in the Times Literary Supplement. Here is what British author and Byron scholar Tom Holland writes: "James O’Donnell’s The Ruin of the Roman Empire: A New History (Ecco) takes as its centrepiece the period of Ostrogothic rule in sixth-century Italy... [it is] revelatory: scholarly and original, unafraid to tackle profound issues of cultural and religious identity, and often hauntingly poetic."