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The empire behind the legend Carthage was a power that dominated the western Mediterranean for almost six centuries before its fall to Rome. The history of the realm and its Carthaginians was subsumed by their conquerors and, along the way, the story of the real Carthage was lost. An ancient North African kingdom, Carthage was the home of Hannibal and of Dido, of war elephants and enormous power and wealth, of great beauty and total destruction. In this landmark new history, Eve MacDonald tells the essential story of the lost culture of Carthage and of its forgotten people, using brand new archaeological analysis to uncover the history behind the legend. A journey that takes us the Phoenician Levant of the early Iron Age to the Atlantic and all along the coast of Africa, Carthage puts the city and the story of North Africa once again at the centre of Mediterranean history. Reclaimed from the Romans, this is the Carthaginian version of the tale, revealing to us that, without Carthage, there would be no Rome.
About the author
Dr Eve MacDonald is Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at Cardiff University; she is an archaeologist and ancient historian who has worked and published extensively on the history and material culture of Carthage, North Africa and the Middle East. She is one of the world’s foremost experts on the region and is the author of Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life that was published in 2015 by Yale University Press. She has also appeared in podcasts (History Hit: The Ancients, Hannibal’s Winter War) and documentary films for Channel 4 and PBS’ Secrets of the Dead. Carthage is her first book for the trade.
