Life in Classical Athens and Rome
by Peter Connolly
Recommended by Paul Graham
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Recommended by 2 sources and appears in Books Recommended by Paul Graham, Most Recommended Books, and History.
In this superbly illustrated volume, Athens and Rome, the two greatest cities of antiquity, spring to life under the masterful pen of Peter Connolly. All the historical and archaelogical evidence has been seamlessly pieced together to reconstruct the architectural wonders of these mighty civilizations. Re creating public buildings, religious temple...
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Why recommended
Recommended by 2 sources and appears in Books Recommended by Paul Graham, Most Recommended Books, and History.
People and public figures who have recommended this book.
Recommendation proof is sourced from public posts, interviews, reading lists, and cited references.

Paul Graham
Co-founder of Y Combinator; essayist
“Peter Connolly's The Ancient City is one of the best books I've found for explaining history to kids.”
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Consider Accidental Presidents by Jared Cohen. Recommended by 10 sources.
“Accidental Presidents offers eight narrative portraits of men who succeeded to the U.S. presidency without election, using anecdote-rich scenes and readable context to show how personality and circumstance interact with office power. It’s strongest as a set of self-contained stories that make succession stakes concrete for non-specialist readers; it does not prioritize dense archival argument or exhaustive methodology, so expect some interpretive generalizations and repeated themes across cases. Use it for fast historical orientation rather than scholarly deep-dives.”
Each recommendation is collected from a public source — interviews, articles, or curated lists — and linked to its original URL. Books with many verifiable recommendations from respected people rank higher.