The biggest difference in having a hard copy rather than seeing it on the screen (aside from the absence of color, which I really only missed in the mosaic on the cover page of Chapter 5), is being able to flip back and forth more easily. Which helps me to keep track of the proliferation of Caesars and Augustuses. And to look back on images I especially like, or at parts that really cracked me up.

The thing that comes through, reading it from cover to cover, is how important a story this is. Despite the fact that it is peopled with madmen, murderers and assholes, it is really about one of the most influential moments in human history. I never grasped before that this is how Christianity became established and took so central and influential a place in human history. And of course, you make the story hilarious. What better way to teach or learn.

I think it would make a great text for a secondary or university history of religious studies class.