Emma Southon Books In Order

Publication Order of Children's Books

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Emma Southon is an accomplished published author.

She is a doctor and has a PhD in ancient history that she got from the University of Birmingham. She taught ancient and medieval history for some years and then taught academic writing, but says that she quit academia due to its grim nature! She then decided that it was time to write for her own enjoyment.

Emma is also the co-host of a podcast that focuses on history and comedy called History is Sexy. She hosts the show along with Janina Matthewson.

Emma has written several books for adults and even one for children. She has written for places such as All About History, History Today, The British Museum, BBC History, and Opera News. She has also made appearances on different podcasts such as Betwixt the Sheets, You’re Dead to Me, The Ancients, and After Dark.

The author has also made radio appearances in Australia and the United Kingdom and has been in different television documentaries for Channel 4, Netflix, and History Hit. She enjoys giving public talks and has made appearances at The British Museum, the Chalke History Festival, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the Warwick History Festival, in person and online.

Southon recounts that she just loves and hates the Roman and wants to write about them featuring ‘stupid jokes’ forever.

A Rome of One’s Own: The Forgotten Women of the Roman Empire is a 2023 novel by Emma Southon. This book features the lives of twenty-one different women to showcase a part of the ancient world and enhance the reader’s understanding of it.

The history of Rome has in some ways often been one sided and narrow in its nature, and according to the author is a history of important things have been done. It is also of note that as far as the historians who study Rome are concerned, women are not often qualified for being part of that featured history.

No matter what the time period is, from Romulus to the late Republic or the other emperors, Roman historians may occasionally choose to offer up to the reader a mother or a wife figure just to illustrate how bad things can be when women start to get out of control. However, overall, history is far more than that. A Rome of One’s Own works to illustrate that.

This book is a grand correction of history and its often male-focused gaze. It retells the history of Rome and includes on purpose and with gusto so many of the things that frequently are relegated to the background by the Roman history writers, or are else deemed as being guilty of the crime of being feminine or domestic and deemed worthless.

Southon includes the history of women this time around and gives them their rightful place in history– after all, they were there. These are the women who led armies in rebellion, who caused outrage, who expressed themselves through poetry. They were women who lived on their own or alternatively under emperors.

These stories are told to us with humor and verve and include a scholarly background and gives a spotlight that shines on women of history who have frequently been misunderstood and overlooked. Through them a chronicle of the ancient world is achieved that readers will not want to miss. A fascinating overview of a time period of history that needs no help in being fascinating or interesting, this book is certainly worth taking a closer look at.

Not Built in a Day: How Slavery Made the Roman Empire is a 2026 book written by Emma Southon. There are so many ways that Ancient Rome was interesting and now readers get the chance to look at this place and time period through the eyes of a reliable historian. This is the story of the history of Ancient Rome, one that looks into how the empire was built up, fueled by, and ultimately shaped by the enslaved people who made it up.

Upon conquering Gaul, Julius Caesar boasted that he had killed a million Gauls while also enslaving the same amount. The truth when it comes to the Roman empire is that Rome was a place that functioned because of slavery. It would not have been able to run the same way that it did without slavery as it was the underpinning of nearly every aspect of their economy.

There were millions of people taken from their homes after a war, kidnapped off of the streets, sold into slavery as a form of punishment, or born into slavery. Without them, the empire’s buildings like temples and their aqueducts would have never have been able to be constructed. There wouldn’t have been tiles or coins to discover in fields, a lack of manpower for the navy and army, a lack of marble palaces, no underfloor heating, and the life of luxury for the people at the top would not have been possible.

This book tells all of the stories of the people who made up the Roman empire and made its existence feasible. Readers will be taken into the spaces of the empire that are not as frequently seen. Here millions of enslaved people made the excesses of the empire that owned them possible. They were part of the machine, helping harvest and process the wheat needed to make bread for the populace, acting and performing as gladiators for circuses, serving as guards protecting the roads or working in the mines to prove the city with its marble and gold and placing bricks to make the Colosseum.

This book looks into how people were able to come into and experience slavery, and even leave it behind. It also covers the slave revolt stories and realities that enslaved people faced who also owned people who were enslaved.

Not Built in a Day takes an exploratory path through the lives of slaves who were also freed from this existence and were able to choose their own paths. Very well written and full of expertise and knowledge, the author pulls us into Roman life as it was and may even surprise you by turning your idea of what the Roman empire is on its head. An engaging read in every way!