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Author: Steven Pressfield Publisher: Bantam ISBN: 0553904051 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 402
Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “Steven Pressfield brings the battle of Thermopylae to brilliant life.”—Pat Conroy At Thermopylae, a rocky mountain pass in northern Greece, the feared and admired Spartan soldiers stood three hundred strong. Theirs was a suicide mission, to hold the pass against the invading millions of the mighty Persian army. Day after bloody day they withstood the terrible onslaught, buying time for the Greeks to rally their forces. Born into a cult of spiritual courage, physical endurance, and unmatched battle skill, the Spartans would be remembered for the greatest military stand in history—one that would not end until the rocks were awash with blood, leaving only one gravely injured Spartan squire to tell the tale. . . .
Author: Steven Pressfield Publisher: Bantam ISBN: 0553904051 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 402
Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “Steven Pressfield brings the battle of Thermopylae to brilliant life.”—Pat Conroy At Thermopylae, a rocky mountain pass in northern Greece, the feared and admired Spartan soldiers stood three hundred strong. Theirs was a suicide mission, to hold the pass against the invading millions of the mighty Persian army. Day after bloody day they withstood the terrible onslaught, buying time for the Greeks to rally their forces. Born into a cult of spiritual courage, physical endurance, and unmatched battle skill, the Spartans would be remembered for the greatest military stand in history—one that would not end until the rocks were awash with blood, leaving only one gravely injured Spartan squire to tell the tale. . . .
Author: Steven Pressfield Publisher: Black Irish Entertainment LLC ISBN: 1936891018 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 112
Book Description
WARS CHANGE, WARRIORS DON'T We are all warriors. Each of us struggles every day to define and defend our sense of purpose and integrity, to justify our existence on the planet and to understand, if only within our own hearts, who we are and what we believe in. Do we fight by a code? If so, what is it? What is the Warrior Ethos? Where did it come from? What form does it take today? How do we (and how can we) use it and be true to it in our internal and external lives? The Warrior Ethos is intended not only for men and women in uniform, but artists, entrepreneurs and other warriors in other walks of life. The book examines the evolution of the warrior code of honor and "mental toughness." It goes back to the ancient Spartans and Athenians, to Caesar's Romans, Alexander's Macedonians and the Persians of Cyrus the Great (not excluding the Garden of Eden and the primitive hunting band). Sources include Herodotus, Thucydides, Plutarch, Xenophon, Vegetius, Arrian and Curtius--and on down to Gen. George Patton, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, and Israeli Minister of Defense, Moshe Dayan.
Author: W. H. Auden Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 0691256586 Category : Poetry Languages : en Pages : 137
Book Description
Back in print for the first time in decades, Auden’s National Book Award–winning poetry collection, in a critical edition that introduces it to a new generation of readers The Shield of Achilles, which won the National Book Award in 1956, may well be W. H. Auden’s most important, intricately designed, and unified book of poetry. In addition to its famous title poem, which reimagines Achilles’s shield for the modern age, when war and heroism have changed beyond recognition, the book also includes two sequences—“Bucolics” and “Horae Canonicae”—that Auden believed to be among his most significant work. Featuring an authoritative text and an introduction and notes by Alan Jacobs, this volume brings Auden’s collection back into print for the first time in decades and offers the only critical edition of the work. As Jacobs writes in the introduction, Auden’s collection “is the boldest and most intellectually assured work of his career, an achievement that has not been sufficiently acknowledged.” Describing the book’s formal qualities and careful structure, Jacobs shows why The Shield of Achilles should be seen as one of Auden’s most central poetic statements—a richly imaginative, beautifully envisioned account of what it means to live, as human beings do, simultaneously in nature and in history.
Author: Plutarch Publisher: Penguin UK ISBN: 0141925507 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 336
Book Description
Plutarch's vivid and engaging portraits of the Spartans and their customs are a major source of our knowledge about the rise and fall of this remarkable Greek city-state between the sixth and third centuries BC. Through his Lives of Sparta's leaders and his recording of memorable Spartan Sayings he depicts a people who lived frugally and mastered their emotions in all aspects of life, who also disposed of unhealthy babies in a deep chasm, introduced a gruelling regime of military training for boys, and treated their serfs brutally. Rich in anecdote and detail, Plutarch's writing brings to life the personalities and achievements of Sparta with unparalleled flair and humanity.
Author: Conn Iggulden Publisher: National Geographic Books ISBN: 1405921536 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
The bestselling author of the Emperor, Conqueror and The Wars of the Roses returns to the Ancient World with a gripping adventure based on an epic true story. 'HIS FINEST NOVEL TO DATE . . . THE BATTLE SCENES ARE THRILLING' SUNDAY EXPRESS ___________ In the Ancient World, one army was feared above all others. 401 BC. The Persian king Artaxerxes rules an empire stretching from the Aegean to northern India. As many as fifty million people are his subjects. His rule is absolute. But the sons of Sparta are eager to play the game of thrones . . . Battles can be won - or lost - with a single blow. Princes fall. And when the dust of civil war settles, the Spartans are left stranded in the heart of an enemy's empire, without support, without food and without water. Far from home, surrounded by foes, it falls to the young soldier Xenophon to lead the survivors against Artaxerxes' legendary Persian warriors. The Falcon of Sparta masterfully depicts the ferocity and heroism that was the Ancient World. It is a tale of warring ambition, betrayal and bravery and an extraordinary journey out of exile against the odds. 'The pace is nail-biting' THE TIMES
Author: Michael Curtis Ford Publisher: Macmillan ISBN: 1429904364 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 391
Book Description
After decades of war, mighty Athens has been ravaged-- its navy destroyed, its city walls toppled, its army disbanded. The fierce military state of Sparta has triumphed, but passions and hate linger on. Thousands of battle-hardened veterans from both sides in the conflict remain scattered across the Greek islands, restless and dangerous-- until the young Persian prince Cyrus issues a call to arms from his base in Asia Minor. The rogue nobleman is raising an enormous mercenary army to wrest control of all of Persia, the most powerful empire on earth, from his half-brother the king. The young philosopher-warrior Xenophon, scion of a noble Athenian family and follower of Socrates, risks his father's wrath and embarks on the adventure with high hopes for glory. Joining his cousin Proxenus, the war-maddened Spartan general Clearchus, and a huge body of Cyrus' native troops, he and ten thousand Greek mercenaries depart on an astounding march of a thousand miles, across the searing desert. Their near-deadly journey culminated in a massive, bloody battle at the very threshold of Babylon-- a battle that proves disastrous for them. Their leaders are betrayed and murdered, their supply lines cut, and their route home across the desert blocked by the furious Persian king, bent on revenge. The Fates call on Xenophon to lead the devastated Greek soldiers in their escape, though he has little experience in commanding men. As the army flees toward the snowy north, its situation appears desperate. Months later, ten thousand battered, half-starved soldiers stagger out of the frozen mountains of Armenia into a small Greek trading post on the Black Sea. Their true tale of survival, and of the heroic expedition Xenophon led through the heart of an enemy empire, astonished the incredulous natives and has been the stuff of legend ever since. Michael Curtis Ford combines his expertise on fifth-century B.C. Greek warfare with explosive page-turning action to give us an epic novel of struggle and survival. Not since Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire has any book so vividly captured the glory, beauty, and savage bloodshed that was ancient Greece.
Author: Philip Bobbitt Publisher: Anchor ISBN: 0307796906 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 962
Book Description
"We are at a moment in world affairs when the essential ideas that govern statecraft must change. For five centuries it has taken the resources of a state to destroy another state . . . This is no longer true, owing to advances in international telecommunications, rapid computation, and weapons of mass destruction. The change in statecraft that will accompany these developments will be as profound as any that the State has thus far undergone." —from the Prologue The Shield of Achilles is a classic inquiry into the nature of the State, its origin in war, and its drive for peace and legitimacy. Philip Bobbitt, a professor of constitutional law and a historian of nuclear strategy, has served in the White House, the Senate, the State Department, and the National Security Council in both Democratic and Republican administrations, and here he brings his formidable experience and analytical gifts to bear on our changing world. Many have observed that the nation-state is dying, yet others have noted that the power of the State has never been greater. Bobbitt reconciles this paradox and introduces the idea of the market-state, which is already replacing its predecessor. Along the way he treats such themes as the Long War (which began in 1914 and ended in 1990). He explains the relation of violence to legitimacy, and the role of key individuals in fates that are partially—but only partially—determined. This book anticipates the coalitional war against terrorism and lays out alternative futures for the world. Bobbitt shows how nations might avoid the great power confrontations that have a potential for limitless destruction, and he traces the origin and evolution of the State to such wars and the peace conferences that forged their outcomes into law, from Augsburg to Westphalia to Utrecht to Vienna to Versailles. The author paints a powerful portrait of the ever-changing interrelatedness of our world, and he uses his expertise in law and strategy to discern the paths that statehood will follow in the coming years and decades. Timely and perceptive, The Shield of Achilles will change the way we think about the world.
Author: Ernle Bradford Publisher: Open Road Media ISBN: 1497617367 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 289
Book Description
An account of the ancient battle between Persia and the alliance of Greek city-states, including the legendary “300 Spartans.” In 480 BCE, Persian king Xerxes led a massive invasion of Greece. A critical point in this invasion was the battle for the pass at Thermopylae—“Hot Gates” in Greek. Xerxes had amassed one of the largest armies yet known to man, while Leonidas’s troops, a group of united Spartans, Thespians, Thebans, and others, including slaves, were a small fraction of the Persian horde. Despite the overwhelming odds, Leonidas and his men stood their ground for three days in a historic display of patriotism and courage. In Thermopylae: Battle for the West, acclaimed author Ernle Bradford covers the entire era of the invasion—from the foundation of the Persian empire to the accession of Darius all the way to the final, bloody battles—in a fascinating and accessible look at warfare in ancient times.
Author: Myke Cole Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN: 1472843746 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 489
Book Description
Covering Sparta's full classical history, The Bronze Lie examines the myth of Spartan warrior supremacy. The last stand at Thermopylae made the Spartans legends in their own time, famous for their toughness, stoicism and martial prowess – but was this reputation earned? This book paints a very different picture of Spartan warfare – punctuated by frequent and heavy losses. We also discover a society dedicated to militarism not in service to Greek unity or to the Spartan state itself, but as a desperate measure intended to keep its massive population of helots (a near-slave underclass) in line. What successes there were, such as in the Peloponnesian Wars, gave Sparta only a brief period of hegemony over Greece. Today, there is no greater testament to this than the relative position of modern Sparta and its famous rival Athens. The Bronze Lie explores the Spartans' arms and armor, tactics and strategy, the personalities of commanders and the common soldiery alike. It looks at the major battles, with a special focus on previously under-publicized Spartan reverses that have been left largely unexamined. The result is a refreshingly honest and accurate account of Spartan warfare.
Author: Steven Pressfield
Author: Steven Pressfield
Author: Steven Pressfield
Author: W. H. Auden
Author: Plutarch
Author: Kathleen Vail
Author: Conn Iggulden
Author: Michael Curtis Ford
Author: Philip Bobbitt
Author: Ernle Bradford
Author: Myke Cole