Cleopatra the Great
The Woman Behind the Legend
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3.1 • 10 Ratings
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
World-Renowned Egyptologist Dr. Joann Fletcher offers an unparalleled look at one of history’s most fascinating leaders—Politician, Mother, and Goddess—the legendary Cleopatra.
The subject of myth for more than two millennia, Cleopatra was a woman of passion, magnetism, and political genius, the last and greatest Egyptian pharaoh. In this mesmerizing biography, Egyptologist Joann Fletcher draws on a wealth of newly discovered information and research to reveal this vital woman as she truly was, from her first meeting with Julius Caesar to her legendary death by snakebite.
Cleopatra the Great tells the story of a turbulent time and the extraordinary woman at its center. A polymath monarch, she was also a potent combination of traditionalist and innovator, astute enough to realize what was necessary for Egypt’s continued prosperity and sufficiently ruthless to allow nothing to stand in her way.
Yet our understanding of Cleopatra has been obscured by Roman propaganda, Shakespearean tragedy, and Hollywood glamour. Cleopatra the Great pieces together the pharaoh’s ancient world with details about her massive library and infamous banquets, her relationships with both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, and her skillful use of fashion and style to further her ambitions and her mystique. Intelligent and compulsively readable, here is an unparalleled biography worthy of its subject.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Egyptologist Fletcher (The Search for Nefertiti) has undoubtedly established the new standard in biographies of the attractive, and probably redhaired, Cleopatra. Exceedingly well-written, her study of the last Ptolemy to rule Egypt is a comprehensive examination of Hellenistic bloodlines, Mediterranean history, Egyptian religion, and the rise of Rome as the ultimate ancient superpower. "oth traditionalist and innovator," Cleopatra was noted for her natural intelligence, superior education, and innate political instincts. Constantly striving to preserve her own authority and, by extension, Egyptian autonomy, she outwitted her co-regent brother and other Graeco-Egyptian rivals, and famously cemented personal and political alliances with Julius Caesar and Marcus Antonius. Ultimately, of course, her abilities failed her, and Octavian, Caesar's nephew, reduced Egypt to a Roman province, an event Cleopatra chose not to witness. Hopefully, Fletcher's excellent work in every respect (it could only have been strengthened with information about the Egyptian people themselves) will not be lost in the wake of Stacy Schiff's bestselling Cleopatra. 8 pages of color illus.
Customer Reviews
Bad editing
I am a cleopatra fanatic. Fletcher offers some new perspectives and I enjoyed the book. However, whoever formatted it for iBooks was extremely sloppy. Countless errors, including things that a simple spell check could have caught. The mistakes almost destroyed the author's ethos. Redo!