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Rearview Mirror Chronicles
Keith Hockton, FRAS, is a writer, publisher, and award-winning podcaster based in Penang, Malaysia, with a deep passion for uncovering the stories that shaped our world. As the Southeast Asia Editor for International Living magazine, Keith explores the intersections of history, culture, and modern life across the region.
A dynamic lecturer and storyteller, he speaks internationally on Southeast Asian politics, economics, and history—bringing the past to life with clarity, wit, and insight. Keith is also a proud Fellow of The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland and is on a mission to make history not only accessible but genuinely entertaining for everyone.
His published books include:
• Atlas of Australian Dive Sites - Travellers Edition (Harper Collins Australia, 2003).
• Penang - An inside guide to its historic homes, buildings, monuments and parks (MPH Publishing, 2012; 2nd Edition 2014; 3rd Edition 2017).
• Festivals of Malaysia (Trafalgar Publishing, 2015).
• The Habitat Penang Hill: A pocket history (Entrepot Publishing, 2018)
• Alana and the Secret Life of Trees at Night (Entrepot Publishing, 2018)
• Penang Then & Now: A Century of Change in Pictures (Entrepot Publishing, 2019; 2nd Edition 2021
• Bersama Lima - Five Together (Entrepot Publishing, 2022)
www.entrepotpublishing.com
Rearview Mirror Chronicles
Thrones of Blood: Rome’s Darkest Emperors
How monstrous were Rome’s emperors? Was Caligula truly mad enough to declare war on the sea? Did Nero really watch Rome burn while playing his lyre? And were these men depraved by nature—or crafted that way by the sharpened pen of Suetonius?
In his Lives of the Caesars, written in 121 AD, Suetonius offers a series of intimate autopsies on power—twelve rulers, stripped bare. From Julius Caesar to the tyrant Domitian, we’re shown men unhinged by absolute control, consumed by paranoia, cruelty, lust, and madness. But how much of it was true? And how much was slander, myth, or a whisper campaign that never stopped echoing?
In this episode, Keith is joined by historian and podcaster Tom Holland, whose chilling new translation of Suetonius reopens the tombs of Rome’s most infamous emperors. Together, they ask: was this the birth of imperial biography—or the earliest, most enduring example of political character assassination?
Welcome to a Rome not of glory, but of rot.
Where emperors die… but their madness lives on.
Referral Links:
For books written and published by Keith Hocton