Alexandria
The City that Changed the World
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
An original, authoritative, and lively cultural history of the first modern city, from pre-Homeric times to the present day.
Islam Issa’s father had always told him about their city's magnificence, and as he looked at the new library in Alexandria it finally hit home. This is no ordinary library. And Alexandria is no ordinary city.
Combining rigorous research with myth and folklore, Alexandria is an authoritative history of a city that has shaped our modern world. Soon after being founded by Alexander the Great, Alexandria became the crucible of cultural exchange between East and West for millennia and the undisputed global capital of knowledge. It was at the forefront of human progress, but it also witnessed brutal natural disasters, plagues, crusades and violence.
Major empires fought over Alexandria, from the Greeks and Romans to the Arabs, Ottomans, French, and British. Key figures shaped the city from its eponymous founder to Aristotle, Cleopatra, Saint Mark the Evangelist, Napoleon Bonaparte and many others, each putting their own stamp on its identity and its fortunes. And millions of people have lived in this bustling seaport on the Mediterranean. From its humble origins to its dizzy heights and its latest incarnation, Islam Issa tells us the rich and gripping story of a city that changed the world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Historian Issa (Shakespeare and Terrorism) delivers a lively chronicle of one of the world's most cosmopolitan cities from its beginnings almost two and a half millennia ago to the present. Founded by Alexander the Great on the Mediterranean coast of present-day Egypt at the western edge of the Nile River delta, Alexandria started as a fishing village and became a place where "East and West could meet." Issa highlights the Ptolemaic rulers who succeeded Alexander and turned the city into the Hellenistic capital with palaces and temples; the Pharos Lighthouse, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world; and the city's Great Library and the Alexandrian Museum, which attracted scholars from around the world. Among other accomplishments, these scholars "developed geometry... proved the earth isn't flat... invented the steam engine," and collated and emended classical texts from many traditions, including Hindu, Jewish, and Zoroastrian. Julius Caesar's siege in 47 BCE and Octavian's showdown against Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Alexandria in 30 BCE brought the city under Roman rule, until the Arab Rashidun Caliphate captured it in 642 CE. Issa vividly recounts subsequent invasions by the Crusaders, Ottomans, French, and British, and shows how in the modern era Alexandria continued in its role as a cultural hub and social and religious melting pot. This impressively researched account reveals a captivating city through the ages.
