Business writer Ian Garner goes back to the Roman Empire to see the factors contributing to the complete currency collapse in the third century AD (an event from which, the author argues, Ancient Rome never fully recovered).

The author, George Maher, is a consulting actuary with a special interest in history and viewing business through that lens. He has a PhD in the economy of the Roman Empire and has rare insights into the comparative workings of the classical and modern worlds.

Not only a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries he also holds a first-class honours degree in Special Honours Mathematics from Trinity College Dublin.

This book is a history of the Roman Empire written from a practical business perspective.

It begins with a history lesson about the Roman Empire and its economy. Maher paints a vivid picture of life at the beginning of the first millennium and his personal experiences exploring Rome and tracking down the remains of buildings surviving in ruins but dating back to the first couple of centuries AD.

He successfully manages to combine two genres: ‘history’ and ‘business’ although the focus is more on former.

It comes with lots of illustrations and a ton of additional reading if you want to delve more deeply into the topic.

If, like me, you haven’t met many actuaries you may have a view that they are typically introverted, detail orientated and possibly even a bit boring. It’s very unfair to stereotype and of course, actuaries come in all shapes, sizes, and personality types.

I don’t know Maher but judging by this book he is detail orientated but anything but boring, however I found the book a bit hard going in places but remarkably interesting.

I've read several books about the Roman Empire, seen plenty of documentaries and, of course, seen movies like Gladiator, Cleopatra, and Ben-Hur. My impression of the period is a mixture of fact and fiction, and this book helped my understanding of the ‘real’ Rome.

Maher explains how the Roman economy developed and influenced other economies of the time and is the foundation of a lot of what we see in our economy and that of the world.

He draws parallels with events in Roman times and events hundreds of years later and, even current affairs.

Maher gives a vivid illustration that the root causes of current and recent economic disasters are remarkably similar to those of Roman times.

There are some strong lessons from the past that we would all do well to remember. It reminded me of the quote, reputed to be by Winston Churchill "Those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it."

I enjoyed the sections of the book that talked about the Romans in Britain and, in particular the references to Roman London and the City of London with which we are so familiar.

There’s a section describing the Roman monetary system, with coins in gold, silver and copper or bronze. This system goes back to the early first and second century and can be seen in our system as recently as the eighteenth-century Britain, the time of King George II.

Some of the detail about matter-of-fact things like soldiers pay levels and the banking system of the day, were fascinating.

It’s interesting, and as I have already mentioned a little bit of a heavy read, but it should appeal to people with an interest in the period and how business models emerged and developed.

I believe that I got a real insight into the era and learned a lot about people of the time, their behaviours, and their achievements.

If you have the time and inclination, you could do worse than reading this book and developing insight into the Roman eras from a business perspective.