Carthage: A New History of an Ancient Empire

This illuminating debut chronicle from historian MacDonald aims to tell the story of Carthage free from the “othering” propaganda spread by its rivals and eventual annihilators, the Romans. The author draws on new DNA and archaeological evidence to imagine what the ancient world was like for Carthaginians—including getting into the mindset that could have supported the society’s widespread practice of infant sacrifice via cremation, long thought to be Roman propaganda but recently seemingly confirmed by DNA analysis drawn from human remains in temples located around the Carthaginian Mediterranean. She portrays Carthage as deeply influential on the trajectory of Western civilization, as it promoted and practiced republican-style government and multiculturalism, made innovations in industrial-scale shipbuilding, and maintained vast trade networks that spread all manner of groundbreaking technologies. After a somewhat overly military-engagement-focused narrative that restores the Carthaginian, rather than Roman, perspective to Carthage’s major events and figures, from Dido to Hannibal, MacDonald concludes by highlighting ways Carthaginian language and religious practices persisted in North Africa and Iberia for centuries under the shadow of Roman control. She also cannily contemplates the effect the defeat of Carthage had on the West’s future attitudes toward colonization. The result is a thorough, up-to-date account of the little-regarded but once mighty civilization. (Jan.)