From an award-winning historian of ancient Rome, a definitive history of Hadrian's Wall. Stretching eighty miles from coast to coast across northern England, Hadrian's Wall is the largest Roman artifact known today. It is commonly viewed as a defiant barrier, the end of the empire, a place where civilization stopped and barbarism began. In fact, the massive structure remains shrouded in mystery. Was the wall intended to keep out the Picts, who inhabited...

Presents an anthology of the best literary essays published in the past year, selected from American periodicals.