Please read this extract from my new book:
It matters because every single one of the debates, decisions and actions that occurred in that 100 year period resonates with the critical issues facing our world today. The key players in ancient Greece – philosophers like Socrates, generals like Alcibiades, statesmen like Demosthenes and rulers like Philip of Macedon – had to fight to understand and stay ahead of a society in a state of constant change, replying on little more than their own character and nerve. These people had to respond quickly to crises of identity, community, immigration, nation building, military intervention, political instability, poverty and civil war or else be carried away on the tsunami which was ferrying Greece headlong into a new world. For some, that meant following their beliefs to their own death. For others, it meant a careful tap dance of political diplomacy and for others still it meant a cruel and calculated usurpation of power. Just like today as people respond differently to the complexities with which they and the world are faced, so too these ancients had to feel their own individual ways through the darkness. This book follows these characters, exploring the dilemmas they faced and showing how and why they responded in the ways that they did. It is a story about people who, whether they knew it or not, were changing the world. Through their stories, we see the crumbling of democracy, flirtations with oligarchy, the catastrophic effects of civil war, the decadent effects of sudden wealth, the sadistic playfulness of foreign potentates, the rebuilding of ruined cities, the xenophobic treatment of foreigners, the rise of nationalism and the battle between blood communities. This is the story of ancient Greece and its most turbulent period of change, a time in which Greece faced many of the problems which divide our world today. Through the council chamber, the theatre, the back street, the prison, the brothel, the religious sanctuary and the battlefield, this book brings the ancient Greek world to life and makes its most famous characters walk again. It tells a story never told before – one which the modern world can ignore only at its peril.” Please contact me or for serial, interview and other press enquiries, please contact Najma Finlay, Head of Publicity,
najma.finlay@iconbooks.co.uk. Alternatively contact my literary agent to discuss this exciting new publication. |
“Everyone has heard about Athenian democracy, the height of liberty in the ancient world. Everyone has heard about Alexander the Great, the most powerful despot to rule the planet. But no book – academic or popular history – has told the story about how the world of Athenian democracy morphed into the world of King Alexander. In less than 100 years, the Greek world was turned on its head and changed completely forever. This book is about that 100 years of world change. It tells the story of how a way of life which the modern western world has held up as its progenitor and ideal so quickly evolved into its antithesis. Democrats to Kings – how and why did it happen and, more importantly, why is it a story that matters for us today? 