My Roman History

Praise for My Roman History:

“Insightful . . . My Roman History is a winding, lyrical journey through the streets of an ancient city and through Holstein’s continual effort to find herself there.” —Shelf Awareness

“This captivating memoir from a passionate scholar of medieval Rome is creatively framed by the author’s love for the ancient city . . . Holstein is a natural teacher, with an enlightening storia that holds particular appeal for readers fascinated by Rome, history, and travel.” —Booklist

“Historian Holstein elegantly interweaves academic inquiry and autobiography in this lush debut memoir about her love affair with Italy . . . serious Italophiles are a shoo-in for Holstein’s lovingly rendered tribute to one of the world’s greatest cities. This sings.” —Publishers Weekly

“More heartfelt memoir than dry history lesson, the product of Holstein’s lifelong fascination with Rome answers her primary questions: “What can an American tell anyone about Roman history? What could she say that an Italian had not already said? How could I know anything about Rome that an actual living, breathing Roman did not?” She turns up plenty. An intriguing history of Rome as reflected in a scholar’s life.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Exquisitely written . . . Anyone who has ever traveled to a place and fallen in love with it, thrilled to the sound of a language enough to want to learn it, or walked streets and read books in an effort to somehow experience an ‘other’ of time and place, will be moved by Holstein’s fluid and elegant prose and be glad that she became a writer rather than simply another academic historian. . . . She conjures up the experience of falling in love with a place that many of us are lucky enough to have succumbed to at least once in our lives. For those who have ever been enchanted by the otherness of a city, a landscape, or a language, this book will evoke the ineffability of that rarest and dearest of all young loves.” —Caroline Walker Bynum, Common Knowledge

“Brilliant . . . A personal intellectual history, a poignant account of how an expected life veers, and a boldly structured piece of writing.” —Frances Mayes, author of Under the Tuscan Sun, via Instagram

“How does longing take flight, and what determines where it chooses to lodge? As a Dante-struck American teen, Alizah Holstein set her sights—along with all her other senses—upon Rome, and in My Roman History she recounts the birth, growth and maturing of a passionate attachment both to the living city and the past ones that dwell within it. A lyrical and moving exploration of the ways in which the heart governs even the pursuit of a life of the mind, this is a book for anyone who has ever loved Rome, as well as anyone who shares the experience of having found, in an unfamiliar history, their own unexpected home.” —Rebecca Mead, author of My Life in Middlemarch and Home/Land

“A stunning memoir. By weaving the sweep of Roman history with the search for self, Alizah Holstein has written something simultaneously fresh, relevant, and revelatory. A triumph!” —Maira Kalman, author of Women Holding Things

“With lyricism and fierce intelligence, My Roman History investigates the influence of ancient history on one woman’s quest for identity in this modern world. Alizah Holstein has crafted a spellbinding story about her relationship not just with Rome, but with the attendant texts and personalities that have populated her intellectual and emotional life.” —Luisa Weiss, author of My Berlin Kitchen

“This is a book about obsession and how far it can carry us in life—towards ancient metropolises and new lovers, towards landscapes and languages previously undiscovered, and even through long periods of struggle and loss. Here Rome is both light and lighthouse, holding the author (and readers alike) enraptured by its radiant shores.” —Elizabeth Rush, author of Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore