Persian Fire
The First World Empire, Battle for the West - 'Magisterial' Books of the Year, Independent
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4.7 • 7 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Tom Holland's bestselling account of the world's very first clash of civilisations between the Persians and the Greeks in 480BC
'Magisterial... told with great authority and a novelistic colour and verve'
Books of the Year, Independent
'Holland has a rare eye for detail, drama and the telling anecdote'
Dominic Sandbrook, Daily Telegraph
'An unequivocal argument for the relevance of ancient history'
Observer
'Holland brings this tumultuous, epoch-making period dazzlingly to life'
William Napier, Independent on Sunday
In the fifth century BC, a global superpower was determined to bring truth and order to what it regarded as two terrorist states. The superpower was Persia, incomparably rich in ambition, gold and men. The terrorist states were Athens and Sparta, eccentric cities in a poor and mountainous backwater: Greece. The story of how their citizens took on the most powerful man on the planet is as heart-stopping as any episode in history.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After chronicling the fall of the Roman Republic in Rubicon, historian Holland turns his attention further back in time to 480 B.C., when the Greeks defended their city-states against the invading Persian empire, led by Xerxes. Classicists will recall such battles as Marathon, Thermopylae and Salamis, which raises the question: why do we need another account of this war, when we already have Herodotus? But just as Victor David Hanson and Donald Kagan have reframed our understanding of the Peloponnesian War by finding contemporary parallels, Holland recasts the Greek-Persian conflict as the first clash in a long-standing tension between East and West, echoing now in Osama bin Laden's pretensions to a Muslim caliphate. Holland doesn't impose a modern sensibility on the ancient civilizations he describes, and he delves into the background histories of both sides with equally fascinating detail. Though matters of Greek history like the brutal social structure of the Spartans are well known, the story of the Persian empire like the usurper Darius's claim that every royal personage he assassinated was actually an imposter should be fresh and surprising to many readers, while Holland's graceful, modern voice will captivate those intimidated by Herodotus.
