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Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West

Tom Holland

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Apr 13, 2017 Andrea rated it really liked it

Shelves: ancient-greece

Good history of the decades of intermittent conflict that ended with the Greek allies defeating the Persian Emporer Xerxes and establishing the classical period in Greece. Holland has a lively narrative style and seems to quite relish bloody battle scenes and descriptions of armor and ships. I enjoyed the book overall but sections felt like they had been written for adolescent boys.

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Dec 01, 2009 Andrea rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: world-history

This book is well-written and interesting, but as a non-specialist I found the chronology a bit confusing. To complete his project, the author has to jump back and forth in time to cover events that are happening simultaneously in different places, and without much background on the period I found it sometimes hard to keep up. If you decide to tackle this as a non-specialist, I would suggest reading through a couple chapters on the period from a standard textbook first. But the time period is so ...more

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