Carthage

 Carthage: A New History- Eve McDonald

W.W. Norton & Co.

Rating: 📚📚📚

Release Date: January 13, 2026

Synopsis: Carthage was a power that dominated the western Mediterranean for almost six centuries before its fall to Rome. The history of the realm and its Carthaginians was subsumed by their conquerors and, along the way, the story of the real Carthage was lost. An ancient North African kingdom, Carthage was the home of Hannibal and of Dido, of war elephants and enormous power and wealth, of great beauty and total destruction.

In this landmark new history, Eve MacDonald tells the essential story of the lost culture of Carthage and of its forgotten people, using brand new archaeological analysis to uncover the history behind the legend. A journey that takes us the Phoenician Levant of the early Iron Age to the Atlantic and all along the coast of Africa, Carthage puts the city and the story of North Africa once again at the centre of Mediterranean history. Reclaimed from the Romans, this is the Carthaginian version of the tale, revealing to us that, without Carthage, there would be no Rome.

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(3.5 stars)

When history is written by the winners, it can mean the losers are all but erased- and that is what happened with Carthage. Anything anyone today knows about the city comes to us from Roman eyes. So this book, trying to find the Carthage that isn't told to us through Roman propaganda, is a fascinating and much needed book for the history shelves.

From the city's founding as a Phoenecian outpost to its destruction by Rome hundreds of years later, Eve McDonald takes readers through the development of a city, a people, and a mega-power whose existence rivaled (and threatened) Rome's desire to dominate the Mediterranean. She critically examines both ancient sources and modern archaeological discoveries to evaluate how different events, trade, sieges, and the wars with Rome would have effected the Carthaginians. I found her explaination of the changes in the power structures across the Mediterranean over time, and how Alexander the Great essentially changed the game for everyone, quite interesting.

The chapters on the Punic Wars were, for me, the clearest and best written. Maybe because there's the most evidence in the historical sources for her to work with. McDonald is never afraid to admit when there is simply not enough information for scholars to do more than some educated guesswork on something, which I admire. By the end of the book I was pretty solidly on Carthage's side and wishing more reasonable treatied could have worked- but apparently that's not what was going on in this time.

An excellent, well-written, well-researched book for anyone who is interested in getting the story Carthage wishes it could have told us. A must-read for ancient history enthusiasts.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review