Publishers Weekly
04/29/2024
Historian Holstein elegantly interweaves academic inquiry and autobiography in this lush debut memoir about her love affair with Italy. Inspired to pursue a PhD on 14th-century Italian history by a high school teacher who introduced her to Dante, Holstein studs her recollections of trips to Rome—for research and pleasure—with stimulating tidbits on medieval literature, 14th-century religious squabbles, and Dante’s life and work. There are also episodes highlighting her occasional cluelessness as a tourist and underscoring her passion for the city’s aesthetic beauty. After completing her PhD and teaching for a few years, Holstein got married, had children, and founded a baby supply company in Rhode Island, which pulled her away from her academic pursuits. While casual readers may find the scholarly references tough sledding, serious Italophiles are a shoo-in for Holstein’s lovingly rendered tribute to one of the world’s greatest cities. This sings. Agent: Bill Clegg, Clegg Agency. (June)
From the Publisher
Advance praise for My Roman History:
“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
“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
“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
Kirkus Reviews
2024-03-22
For a scholar of Roman history, the struggle to understand Rome’s inhabitants and cultural norms “expanded [her] as a scholar and as a person.”
In 2005, Holstein, an independent editor, earned a doctorate in medieval history from Cornell. Although she sketches out a timeline of Rome from the first Republic through Empire to modern times, the author is particularly interested in the 14th century, a “rather gloomy period of Roman history” when the papal retinue under Clement V left the city for a 70-year residence in Avignon. Holstein’s thesis centers on the question of how medieval Romans understood their city's storied past and how a “mythologized memory of a ‘golden age’ of the past was used in the struggle for political and social power.” The author describes her lifelong education in Italian language and culture, as well as her struggles with paleography, the study and deciphering of historical manuscripts. The book’s title signals that the narrative will be a personal reflection on what Rome has meant to her and how her life and learning led her to its centuries-long story. Consequently, along with the history, Holstein offers reflections on apartment hunting, rock-climbing clubs, and learning Latin. We follow along as the author jumps through the many hoops necessary to gain access to the treasures of the Vatican Library, and we get a good sense of what living in Rome was like for her during her many research trips. 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.
