SPQR ASAP

MY gift for taking out a three-issue subscription with History Today has arrived - a copy of Mary Beard's much-praised book SPQR.
I started reading it yesterday and am fairly racing through the pages, despite a few misgivings about a somewhat-verbose introduction in which she seldom uses one word where ten will do.

SPQR … racy read

It could be argued that the story of ancient Rome is so compelling that only a complete dullard could make it boring, but I am sure there are writers who could achieve this.
Rather than just telling the story as she believes it to have occurred, Professor Beard discusses the various possibilities, sometimes with an annoying emphasis on modern PC concerns, but generally with what seems to be intelligent analysis.
My one regret from reading the first four chapters, apart from the inadequate and hard-to-decipher maps, is that the book ends in AD212 (or 212 CE, as she puts it).
Rome did not cease to be Rome simply because citizenship was extended to inhabitants of the whole empire, which Prof Beard claims is her reason for ending the story there.
I suspect the real reason is that the length of the book, which, for a paperback, is lavishly illustrated with colour plates, was getting out of hand and she did not want to (drastically) trim it.
This is an observation, not a complaint, and the early finish has the advantage that with any luck there will be a part two - I would certainly be a buyer.