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In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great: A Journey from Greece to Asia
Michael Wood · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorTravels with Herodotus
Ryszard Kapuscinski · 288 pages
From the renowned journalist comes this intimate account of his years in the field, traveling for the first time beyond the Iron Curtain to India, China, Ethiopia, and other exotic locales.In the 1950s, Ryszard Kapuscinski finished university in Poland and became a foreign correspondent, hoping to go abroad -- perhaps to Czechoslovakia. Instead, he was sent to India -- the first stop on a decades-
Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present
Peter Hessler · 528 pages
From the acclaimed author of River Town comes a rare portrait, both intimate and epic, of twenty-first-century China as it opens its doors to the outside world.A century ago, outsiders saw Chinaas a place where nothing ever changes. Today the coun-try has become one of the most dynamic regions on earth. That sense of time -- the contrast between past and present, and the rhythms that emerge in a v
Color: A Natural History of the Palette
Victoria Finlay · 448 pages
Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses
Bruce Feiler · 488 pages
The author recounts his ten-thousand-mile journey across the Middle East in search of the roots of the Bible to discover whether it was an abstraction or a living, breathing entity.
Black Sea
Neal Ascherson · 305 pages
"This strikingly original book is about place and history - about the universe of the Black Sea, from Jason and the Golden Fleece to the fall of Communism and the new world disorder. As Neal Ascherson shows in a colorful, learned, and surprising chronicle, the Black Sea has been a decisive "personality" in the history of Europe and Asia; his exploration of the myths and realities surrounding it re
The Histories
Herodotus · 833 pages
Recounts the causes and history of the wars between the Greek city-states and Persia.
The Discovery of Middle Earth: Mapping the Lost World of the Celts
Graham Robb · 400 pages
"When Graham Robb made plans to cycle the legendary Via Heraklea, he had no idea that the line he plotted - stretching from the south-western tip of the Iberian Peninsula, across the Pyrenees and towards the Alps - would change the way he saw a civilization. It was an ancient path that took him deep into the world of the Celts: their gods, their art, and, most of all, their sophisticated knowledge
Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization
Graham Hancock · 769 pages
From Graham Hancock, bestselling author of Fingerprints of the Gods, comes a mesmerizing book that takes us on a captivating underwater voyage to find the ruins of a lost civilization that's been hidden for thousands of years beneath the world's oceans.While Graham Hancock is no stranger to stirring up heated controversy among scientific experts, his books and television documentaries have intrigu
Ghost Empire
Richard Fidler · 516 pages
In 2014, Richard Fidler and his son Joe made a journey to Istanbul. Fired by Richard's passion for the rich history of the dazzling Byzantine Empire - centred around the legendary Constantinople - we are swept into some of the most extraordinary tales in history.The clash of civilizations, the fall of empires, the rise of Christianity, revenge, lust, murder. Turbulent stories from the past are bro
Rome: A Cultural, Visual, and Personal History
Robert Hughes · 534 pages
The founding of Rome is shrouded in legend, but current archaeological evidence supports the theory that Rome grew from pastoral settlements and coalesced into a city in the 8th century BC. It developed into the capital of the Roman Kingdom, the Roman Republic and finally the Roman Empire. For almost a thousand years, Rome was the most politically important, richest and largest city in the Western
Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore
Bettany Hughes · 458 pages
For close to three thousand years, Helen of Troy has been both the embodiment of absolute female beauty and a reminder of the terrible power that beauty can wield. Because of her double marriage to the Greek king Menelaus and the Trojan prince Paris, Helen was held responsible for an enduring enmity between East and West. But who was she? Helen exists in many guises: a matriarch from the Age of He
The Age of Alexander: Nine Greek Lives
Plutarch · 443 pages
Plutarch's parallel biographies of the great men in Greek and Roman history are cornerstones of European literature. This selection provides intimate glimpses into the lives of these men, depicting, as he put it, 'those actions which illuminate the workings of the soul'.
The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy
Adrienne Mayor · 478 pages
Alexander The Great
Paul Anthony Cartledge · 360 pages
"In Alexander the Great, Paul Cartledge describes the brief but iconic life of Alexander (356-323 B.C.), king of Macedon, conqueror of the Persian Empire and founder of a new world order. Cartledge's book is, above all, a hunt for a new past to counter the myths, legends, and often skewed history that have been passed down to us." "At the age of twenty, Alexander inherited the mantle of his father
Caesar
Christian Meier · 513 pages
Caesar fasziniert noch immer durch das, wodurch er Jahrhunderte lang die großen Geister des Abendlandes beeindruckt hat: der Eroberer Galliens und der ganzen römischen Welt, bedeutend zugleich als Politiker und Diplomat, Feldherr und Soldatenführer, Redner, Schriftsteller und auch Liebhaber; Sieger nicht nur, sondern vielfach mild gegenüber den Besiegten, von verwegener Unbekümmertheit und männlic
The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code
Margalit Fox · 363 pages
In the tradition of Simon Winchester and Dava Sobel, *The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code* tells one of the most intriguing stories in the history of language, masterfully blending history, linguistics, and cryptology with an elegantly wrought narrative. When famed archaeologist Arthur Evans unearthed the ruins of a sophisticated Bronze Age civilization that flowered on
Cleopatra and Antony
Diana Preston · 342 pages
The story of the world's best-remembered celebrity couple, set against the political backdrop of their time. In 30 BCE, the 39-year-old queen of Egypt, Cleopatra, took her own life rather than be paraded in chains through Rome by her conqueror, the future first emperor Augustus. A few days earlier, her lover of eleven years, Mark Antony, had himself committed suicide. Historian Diana Preston explo
Caesars' Wives: The Women Who Shaped the History of Rome
Annelise Freisenbruch · 337 pages
Documents the stories of eight wives of Roman rulers, assessing their historical contributions and cultural influence and drawing parallels between modern first ladies and the lives of such ancient-world figures as Livia, Helena, and Julia.
Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome
Anthony Everitt · 420 pages
In Hadrian and the Triumph of Romethe first major account of the emperor in nearly a centuryEveritt presents a compelling, richly researched biography of the man whom he calls arguably "the most successful of Rome's rulers." Born in A.D. 76, Hadrian lived through and ruled during a tempestuous era, a time when the Colosseum was opened to the public and Pompeii was buried under a mountain of lava a
Nefertiti: Unlocking the Mystery Surrounding Egypt's Most Famous and Beautiful Queen
Joyce A. Tyldesley · 256 pages
Joyce Tyldesley here provides a detailed discussion of the life and times of Nefertiti, Egypt's sun queen, set against the background of the ephemeral Amarna court.
Augustus: From Revolutionary to Emperor
Adrian Goldsworthy
London: The Biography
Peter Ackroyd · 824 pages
"London: The Biography is the pinnacle of Peter Ackroyd's brilliant obsession with the eponymous city. In this work, Ackroyd brings the reader through time into the city whose institutions and idiosyncrasies have permeated much of his works of fiction and nonfiction.". "Peter Ackroyd sees London as a living, breathing organism, with its own laws of growth and change. Reveling in the city's riches