Books

There are masses of books on Roman Britain, large and small, many good, some far-fetched! Here is a list of some useful texts:

de la Bedoyère, Guy, Roman Britain: a New History (London: Thames & Hudson, 2013), revised ed.
Nice presentation and features, but tends to lack in-depth analysis. Lots of useful illustrative material.

Birley, Anthony, The People of Roman Britain (London: Batsford, 1979)
A very useful ‘who’s who’ of all the key players.

Birley, Anthony, The Roman Government of Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005)
This gives very detailed coverage of the topic but is prohibitively expensive! Only for the truly committed . . . .

Bowman, Alan K., Life and Letters on the Roman Frontier: Vindolanda and its People (London: British Museum Press, 1994)
A readable and detailed study of what we can learn from the Vindolanda letters.

Cunliffe, Barry, Fishbourne: A Roman Palace and its Garden (London: Thames & Hudson, 1971)
This was and is the key publication about Fishbourne.

Cunliffe, Barry, Roman Bath Discovered (Stroud: Tempus, 2000)
A really useful publication giving the history of the site and its excavation at Bath.

Frere, Sheppard, Britannia: A History of Roman Britain (Abingdon: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987), 3rd ed.
Extensively revised but still valuable, if the archaeology is now sadly dated in places. This is one of those books which went through multiple revisions and is a ‘classic'. The early sections are still largely valid.

Grainge, Gerald, The Roman Invasions of Britain (Stroud: Tempus, 2005)
A helpful overview of the invasion periods, with some nice maps.

Hingley, Richard and Christina Unwin, Boudica: Iron Age Warrior Queen (London: Hambledon Continum, 2005)
Of several books which appeared on Boudicca at much the same time, this is by far the most sensible. There is some rubbish written about her.

Mattingly, David, An Imperial Possession: Britain in the Roman Empire (London: Penguin, 2006)
Quite heavy going; the book caused a stir when it appeared as Mattingly does not like the phrase ‘Romanization’ and started a debate about the pros and cons of Roman domination, etc.

Salway, Peter (ed.), The Roman Era (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002)
Very interesting chapters on the invasion with an analytical approach. Not a book to start with, though!

Southern, Patricia, Roman Britain: A New History, 55 BC–AD 450 (Stroud: Amberley Publishing, 2011)
A readable and useful overview of all the main issues.

Webster, Graham, Rome Against Caratacus: The Roman Campaigns in Britain AD 48–58 (Abingdon: Routledge, 1983), rev. ed.,
A detailed study of British resistance and the Roman army's campaigns in the years following the conquest.

Webster, Graham Boudica: The British Revolt Against Rome AD 60 (Abingdon: Routledge, 1993), rev. ed. )
A very detailed and critical study of the sources and events of Boudica's rebellion.

Sources

Sources are published in the OCR Prescribed Source Booklet, but alternative translations and images are available in two volumes published by LACTOR:

Grocock, Christopher (ed.), Roman Inscriptions of Britain (LACTOR 4, 5th ed., 2017)
Fully revised and extended; the section on ‘civilian life and economic activity’ includes lots of recently-discovered material, including examples of the writing-tablets from the Bloomberg site in London.

Rathbone, Yvette and D. W. Rathbone (eds.), Literary Sources for Roman Britain (LACTOR 11, 2012)
These are both useful sources of original material from Roman Britain, presented in a very accessible format.