Search results for ""author richard stoneman""
British Library Publishing Alexander the Great: The Making of a Myth
Accompanying the first ever exhibition on the storytelling around Alexander the Great, King of Macedon, this book charts the evolution of a legend that continues to captivate audiences today. Alexander the Great acceded to the throne at the age of 20, as king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. By his death in 323 BC, he had created one of the largest empires in the world – but myth proved more powerful than historical truth, and Alexander’s life remains lost in legend. These stories permeate western and eastern cultures and religions, and have endured for more than 2,000 years. Even now, Alexander continues to appeal to new generations and his image persists today in film, theatre, literature and even video games. This book explores the stories that began shortly after Alexander’s mysterious death, and that by the Middle Ages had developed into a narrative of Alexander as the all-conquering hero who fought mythical beasts and explored the unknown using submarines and flying chariots. These incredible legends are brought to life here with exquisite original illustrations in books and manuscripts from around the globe.
£27.00
Princeton University Press The Greek Experience of India: From Alexander to the Indo-Greeks
An exploration of how the Greeks reacted to and interacted with India from the third to first centuries BCEWhen the Greeks and Macedonians in Alexander’s army reached India in 326 BCE, they entered a new world. The plants were unrecognizable, the customs of the people various and puzzling. Alexander’s conquest ended with his death in 323 BCE, but the Greeks would settle in the Indian region for the next two centuries. From observations about botany and mythology to social customs, The Greek Experience of India explores how the Greeks reacted to and constructed life in India during this period. Richard Stoneman offers a valuable look at Megasthenes, ambassador of the King Seleucus to Chandragupta Maurya, and provides a discussion of Megasthenes’ now-fragmentary book Indica. Stoneman considers the art, literature, and philosophy of the Indo-Greek kingdom and how cultural influences crossed in both directions. The Greek Experience of India is a masterful account of the encounters between two remarkable civilizations.
£25.20
The Armchair Traveller at the Bookhaus A Traveller's History of Turkey
Throughout the millennia Turkey formed the core of several Empires - Persia, Rome, Byzantium - before becoming the center of the Ottoman Empire. All these civilizations have left their marks on the landscape, architecture and art of Turkey - a place of fascinating overlapping cultures. "Traveller's History of Turkey" offers a concise and readable account of the region from prehistory right up to the present day. It covers everything from the legendary Flood of Noah, the early civilization of Catal Huyuk seven thousand years before Christ, through the treasures of Troy, Alexander the Great, the Romans, Seljuks, Byzantines and the Golden Age of the Sultans, to the twentieth century's great changes wrought by Kemal Ataturk and the strong position Turkey now holds in the world community.
£5.80
Yale University Press Xerxes: A Persian Life
The first full-scale account of a Persian king vilified by history Xerxes, Great King of the Persian Empire from 486–465 B.C., has gone down in history as an angry tyrant full of insane ambition. The stand of Leonidas and the 300 against his army at Thermopylae is a byword for courage, while the failure of Xerxes’ expedition has overshadowed all the other achievements of his twenty-two-year reign. In this lively and comprehensive new biography, Richard Stoneman shows how Xerxes, despite sympathetic treatment by the contemporary Greek writers Aeschylus and Herodotus, had his reputation destroyed by later Greek writers and by the propaganda of Alexander the Great. Stoneman draws on the latest research in Achaemenid studies and archaeology to present the ruler from the Persian perspective. This illuminating volume does not whitewash Xerxes’ failings but sets against them such triumphs as the architectural splendor of Persepolis and a consideration of Xerxes’ religious commitments. What emerges is a nuanced portrait of a man who ruled a vast and multicultural empire which the Greek communities of the West saw as the antithesis of their own values.
£25.00