Given recent interest in disasters and responses to them it is not surprising to find T.'s volume devoted to disasters in the Roman world. T.'s goal is to ‘provide a broad and innovative treatment of the subject of disasters in ancient Rome’ (p. viii) and prove his thesis that examining disaster provides much insight about ancient Rome and the expectations and experience of its people. He is undeniably correct that disasters can highlight various aspects of the Roman world. He is, however, unsuccessful in this work because of flaws in its execution.

The strength of T.'s approach is his open-mindedness to an immense topic fraught with source problems. Chapter 1 focuses on trying to define disaster by considering both the Roman conception and the modern definitions. This use of modern comparanda is the first indication that his approach will require a careful touch. The remaining chapters try to meet the aforementioned goal. Nine chapters then cover the kinds of disasters Rome suffered, the ways Romans experienced events, aftermath, Roman thinking on disaster, the culture of risk, Roman writing on disasters, military disaster, psychological impacts and finally, a more direct comparison of Roman and modern disaster.

Despite the promise, it is in the execution that the work falls short. The first problem one encounters is the scope of the work. Rather than limit himself to the Republic, or at least to the early empire, T. tries to cover disasters ranging from the Second Punic War to the plague of Justinian's reign. This means he must treat Roman culture as an unchanging whole. As a result, T.'s generalisations present as constant a culture that changed over time and place. A corollary to this cultural homogenisation is in his use of the sources. Sources for disaster are limited despite its ubiquity so T. must make the most of every source. He is aware that authors in different eras may have different approaches or agendas in recording disaster, but then mixes them all together and has difficulty correcting for the different biases in the evidence and the changes over time. T.'s intention to employ modern definitions and approaches to shed light on aspects of the ancient topic is ambitious, but poorly executed as the evidence available for the ancient events is insufficient and he is unable to capitalise on these analytical tools. Finally, organisational problems, to be expected in a work covering so much material, introduce additional confusion.

This topic is not without promise, but this book proves the advice that less can be more. A better approach might have been to isolate disaster in either the early principate or Late Antiquity when one could have a more coherent cultural and source base from which to work. The book, in its flaws, draws attention to a rich topic in which much work calls to be done and much remains to be revealed.