The Storm Before the Storm

Mike Duncan, creator of the podcasts The History of Rome and Revolutions, tells how the Roman Republic began to break down in the decades from 146 to 78 BC. By 146 BC Rome had become the strongest power in the Mediterranean, yet its republican institutions could not manage the empire it now governed. Duncan traces the strains that followed: widening economic inequality, social and ethnic prejudice that set off fights over citizenship and the vote, and corruption and ambition that turned politics violent. He centers the account on the generation of the Gracchi brothers, Marius and Sulla, who abandoned older principles and set precedents that led the Republic toward destruction. The book was published in 2017.

500 Startups partner Marvin Liao listed it in a Book-Talk interview, where his picks mixed history with business and fiction.