Rome is the most lush, vibrant, and enveloping experience on television. Equal parts love, betrayal, lust, and battle, the hit HBO series tells of the eternal quest for power, from Caesar crossing the Rubicon to his assassination to Cleopatra's arrival in Rome. Packed with more than 100 full-color images, commentary from the cast and creators, and a comprehensive episode guide, this stunningly beautiful book reveals the incredible, panoramic scope of Rome's vision and explores its interplay between history and an imagined world.

I read this book in under two hours. It's mostly quality, high gloss photos with episode summaries next to them. There isn't much real Rome history in it and it only has about eight pages on the making of series. The cover is sort of a dull muted blue cardboard, it should have been of much higher quality and design (like Deadwood's) if this was suppose to be a pretty coffee table book. I enjoyed the book a fair amount but overall it was an averagely made photo book rather than an in depth depiction of the series. Unless your an ultra fan, I might just borrow it from the library and save my money for the Blu-ray discs of the series or an actual Rome history book.

The television series was incredible. Excellent writing, perfect casting (and that is an understatement), stunning visuals. The book? Meh. I was thinking it was going to have a lot of behind the scenes stories, maybe some story boards, set design drawings, photos of directors interacting with the cast, actor backgrounds, and so forth. The book is mostly nice images from the series, and that's pretty much it. There are a couple of pages of costume designs, a page or two of a couple of sets, but it's mostly photos taken while filming.

this book is good if you wish to have lot of pictures from the show, i was hoping it will be also included some historic facts, but that is not the case.lots of pictures very little text like some woman magazine. it is not what i have expected, but i am also not disappointed , something in between. it is good to have it as a reminder so i don't have to always look at my dvd sets to remind me of some details. design of the book is high quality paper is very nice, photos are professional. so it is not bad all together.but just don't expect that you can learn about actual historic facts from this book.

It is the coffee-table-book (I have expected): many very beautiful illustrations, but not much information about the production or the historical background.

The characters and and their relationships come through quickly and vividly in these brief words and great photographs. They are images of the same people and places as the series, but not right from the video. These are new pictures with subtle characterizations that I agree with, but did not see in the series. The pride shown by Caesar and Cleopatra while showeing off the child Caesarion is one example. It is much easier to study the clothing and the architecture than in the series. Happy purchase.