This second edition of Alison E. Cooley's accessible introduction to Pompeii takes into account
the major new theories and discoveries that have emerged since the first edition was published
20 years ago. Italy's third most popular tourist destination Pompeii attracts millions of
visitors each year and images of the town are familiar all around the world. However even
today our picture of the site is being impacted by new archaeological discoveries. This book
focuses particularly on the date of the eruption the natural environment of Pompeii the
recovery of skeletal remains and plaster casts and Pompeii in the popular imagination. In
addition three new chapters look at the popularization of Pompeii archaeological
reconstruction of the Roman town and how we know what we know about the people who lived
there. The technological advances of the 20th and 21st centuries have transformed our
understanding of the urban environment of Pompeii raising new questions even as they dig ever
deeper into the surviving material evidence. This volume offers a succinct and insightful
exploration of the impact of these scientific and archaeological innovations as well as that
of contemporary politics upon interpretations of Pompeii over the last 250 years including
the ways in which advances in volcanology have transformed our picture of its last moments.
