Best Historical Greece Biographies Books
Here you will get Best Historical Greece Biographies Books For you.This is an up-to-date list of recommended books for you.
1. Meditations
Author: by Marcus Aurelius
English
88 pages
1545565678
About Marcus Aurelius Meditations Meditations is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor from 161 to 180 AD, recording his private notes to himself and ideas on Stoic philosophy. Marcus Aurelius wrote the 12 books of the Meditations in Koine Greek as a source for his own guidance and self-improvement.
It is possible that large portions of the work were written at Sirmium, where he spent much time planning military campaigns from 170 to 180. It is unlikely that Marcus Aurelius ever intended his Meditations to be published and the work has no official title, so “Meditations” is one of several titles commonly assigned to the collection.
These writings take the form of quotations varying in length from one sentence to long paragraphs. About this translation of Marcus Aurelius Meditations This is the classic and official translation of the Meditations as produced by George Long and originally printed in The Harvard Classics.
What you get when you buy this edition of Meditations This edition of Meitations is an 80 page long 9×6 trade paperback edition in creme paper and a black glossy cover. Famous quotes from this edition of Meditations Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years.
2. Meditations (150th Anniversary Collection Edition): A Classic History of Philosophy By Marcus Aurelius
Author: by Marcus Aurelius
B097C299F4
English
123 pages
You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength. Marcus Aurelius, MeditationsWritten in Greek by the only Roman emperor who was also a philosopher, without any intention of publication, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius offer a remarkable series of challenging spiritual reflections and exercises developed as the emperor struggled to understand himself and make sense of the universe.
While the Meditations were composed to provide personal consolation and encouragement, Marcus Aurelius also created one of the greatest of all works of philosophy: a timeless collection that has been consulted and admired by statesmen, thinkers and readers throughout the centuries.
Aurelius advocates finding one’s place in the universe and sees that everything came from nature, and so everything shall return to it in due time. Another strong theme is of maintaining focus and to be without distraction all the while maintaining strong ethical principles such as “Being a good man.”A True Classic that Belongs on Every Bookshelf!
3. Hearing Homer's Song: The Brief Life and Big Idea of Milman Parry
Author: by Robert Kanigel
Knopf (April 27, 2021)
English
336 pages
From the acclaimed biographer of Jane Jacobs and Srinivasa Ramanujan comes the first full life and work of arguably the most influential classical scholar of the twentieth century, who overturned long-entrenched notions of ancient epic poetry and enlarged the very idea of literature.
In this literary detective story, Robert Kanigel gives us a long overdue portrait of an Oakland druggist’s son who became known as the “Darwin of Homeric studies.” So thoroughly did Milman Parry change our thinking about the origins of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey that scholars today refer to a “before” Parry and an “after.” Kanigel describes the “before,” when centuries of readers, all the way up until Parry’s trailblazing work in the 1930’s, assumed that the Homeric epics were “written” texts, the way we think of most literature; and the “after” that we now live in, where we take it for granted that they are the result of a long and winding oral tradition.
Parry made it his life’s work to develop and prove this revolutionary theory, and Kanigel brilliantly tells his remarkable story-cut short by Parry’s mysterious death by gunshot wound at the age of thirty-three. From UC Berkeley to the Sorbonne to Harvard to Yugoslavia-where he traveled to prove his idea definitively by studying its traditional singers of heroic poetry-we follow Parry on his idiosyncratic journey, observing just how his early notions blossomed into a full-fledged theory.
4. Alexander the Great
Author: by Philip Freeman
English
416 pages
1416592814
In the first authoritative biography of Alexander the Great written for a general audience in a generation, classicist and historian Philip Freeman tells the remarkable life of the great conqueror. The celebrated Macedonian king has been one of the most enduring figures in history.
He was a general of such skill and renown that for two thousand years other great leaders studied his strategy and tactics, from Hannibal to Napoleon, with countless more in between. He flashed across the sky of history like a comet, glowing brightly and burning out quickly: crowned at age nineteen, dead by thirty-two.
He established the greatest empire of the ancient world; Greek coins and statues are found as far east as Afghanistan. Our interest in him has never faded. Alexander was born into the royal family of Macedonia, the kingdom that would soon rule over Greece.
Tutored as a boy by Aristotle, Alexander had an inquisitive mind that would serve him well when he faced formidable obstacles during his military campaigns. Shortly after taking command of the army, he launched an invasion of the Persian empire, and continued his conquests as far south as the deserts of Egypt and as far east as the mountains of present-day Pakistan and the plains of India.
5. The Last Days of Socrates (Penguin Classics)
Author: by Plato
Penguin Classics
English
304 pages
The trial and death of Socrates (469-399 BCE) have almost as central a place in Western consciousness as the trial and death of Jesus. In four superb dialogues, Plato provides the classic account. Euthyphro finds Socrates outside the court-house, debating the nature of piety, while the Apology is his robust rebuttal of the charges of impiety and a defence of the philosopher’s life.
In the Crito, while awaiting execution in prison, Socrates counters the arguments of friends urging him to escape. Finally, in the Phaedo, he is shown calmly confident in the face of death, skilfully arguing the case for the immortality of the soul.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
6. Philip and Alexander: Kings and Conquerors
Author: by Adrian Goldsworthy
English
608 pages
154164669X
This definitive biography of one of history’s most influential father-son duos tells the story of two rulers who gripped the world – and their rise and fall from power. Alexander the Great’s conquests staggered the world. He led his army across thousands of miles, overthrowing the greatest empires of his time and building a new one in their place.
He claimed to be the son of a god, but he was actually the son of Philip II of Macedon. Philip inherited a minor kingdom that was on the verge of dismemberment, but despite his youth and inexperience, he made Macedonia dominant throughout Greece.
It was Philip who created the armies that Alexander led into war against Persia. In Philip and Alexander, classical historian Adrian Goldsworthy shows that without the work and influence of his father, Alexander could not have achieved so much. This is the groundbreaking biography of two men who together conquered the world.
7. The Landmark Arrian: The Campaigns of Alexander (Landmark Series)
Author: by Arrian
1400079675
Anchor
English
Arrian’s Campaigns of Alexander, widely considered the most authoritative history of the brilliant leader’s great conquests, is the latest addition to the acclaimed Landmark series. After twelve years of hard-fought campaigns, Alexander the Great controlled a vast empire that was bordered by the Adriatic sea to the west and modern-day India to the east.
Arrian, himself a military commander, combines his firsthand experience of battle with material from Ptolemy’s memoirs and other ancient sources to compose a singular portrait of Alexander. This vivid and engaging new translation of Arrian will fascinate readers who are interested in classical studies, the history of warfare, and the origins of EastWest tensions still swirling in Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan today.
Enriched by the series’ trademark comprehensive maps, illustrations, and annotations, and with contributions from the preeminent classical scholars of today, The Landmark Arrian: The Campaigns of Alexander is the definitive edition of this essential work of ancient history.
8. The Twelve Caesars
Author: by Suetonius
0140455167
Penguin Classics
English
An essential primary source on Roman history and a fascinating achievement of scholarship covering a critical period in the EmpireAs private secretary to the Emperor Hadrian, the scholar Suetonius had access to the imperial archives and used them (along with eyewitness accounts) to produce one of the most colourful biographical works in history.
The Twelve Caesars chronicles the public careers and private lives of the men who wielded absolute power over Rome, from the foundation of the empire under Julius Caesar and Augustus, to the decline into depravity and civil war under Nero and the recovery that came with his successors.
A masterpiece of observation, anecdote and detailed physical description, The Twelve Caesars presents us with a gallery of vividly drawnand all too humanindividuals.James B. Rives has sensitively updated Robert Graves’s now classic translation, reinstating Latin terms and updating vocabulary while retaining the liveliness of the original.
This edition contains a new chronology, further reading, glossaries, maps, notes and an introduction discussing Suetonius’ life and works. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines.
9. The Man with the Sawed-Off Leg and Other Tales of a New York City Block
Author: by Daniel J. Wakin
B0754J61T7
Arcade (January 23, 2018)
January 23, 2018
They stand proudly gazing across the Hudson River at the cliffs of New Jersey. Their brows are marked by ornamental pediments. Greek columns stand as sentries by their entrances and stone medallions bedeck their chests. They are seven graceful relics of Beaux Arts New York, townhouses built more than 100 years ago for a new class of industrialists, actors and scientists – many from abroad – who made their fortunes in the United States and shaped the lives of Americans.
This book brings to life the ghosts who inhabit that row of townhouses on Manhattan’s stately Riverside Drive for the first fifty years of the 20th Century, including a vicious crew of hoodlums who carried out what at the time was the largest armored car robbery in American history.
It was a daring, minutely planned exploit that ended in blood, when one of the gangsters accidentally shot himself. He was taken to one of the townhouses – then, in 1934, an underworld safehouse – where he died and was stuffed in a steamer trunk (but his cohorts had to saw off one of his legs to fit him in it).
10. The Durrells of Corfu
Author: by Michael Haag
Profile Books
English
224 pages
The Durrell family are immortalised in Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals and its TV adaptation, The Durrells. But what of the real life Durrells? Why did they go to Corfu in the first place – and what happened to them after they left?
The real story of the Durrells is as surprising and fascinating as anything in Gerry’s books, and Michael Haag, with his first hand knowledge of the family, is the ideal narrator, drawing on diaries, letters and unpublished autobiographical fragments. The Durrells of Corfu describes the family’s upbringing in India and the crisis that brought them to England and then Greece.
It recalls the genuine characters they encountered on Corfu – Theodore the biologist, the taxi driver Spiro Halikiopoulos and the prisoner Kosti – as well as the visit of American writer Henry Miller. And Haag has unearthed the story of how the Durrells left Corfu, including Margo’s and Larry’s last-minute escapes before the war.
An extended epilogue looks at the emergence of Larry as a world famous novelist, and Gerry as a naturalist and champion of endangered species, as well as the lives of the rest of the family, their friends and other animals.
11. Greek Lives (Oxford World's Classics)
Author: by Plutarch
Oxford University Press
English
483 pages
“I treat the narrative of the Lives as a kind of mirror… The experience is like nothing so much as spending time in their company and living with them: I receive and welcome each of them in turn as my guest.”Here, Plutarch introduces the major figures and periods of classical Greece, detailing the lives of nine personages, including Lycurgus, Solon, Themistocles, Cimon, Alexander, Pericles, Nicias, Alcibiades, and Agesilaus.
Oxford presents the most comprehensive selection available, superbly translatedand accompanied by a lucid introduction, explanatory notes, bibliographies, maps, and indexes. About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World’s Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe.
Each affordable volume reflects Oxford’s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expertintroductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
12. Anaximander
Author: by Carlo Rovelli
Westholme Publishing
English
200 pages
Marvelous….A wonderful book.Humana. MenteRovelli is the dream author to conduct us on this journey.Nonfiction. FrAt this point in time, when the prestige of science is at a low and even simple issues like climate change are mired in controversy, Carlo Rovelli gives us a necessary reflection on what science is, and where it comes from.
Rovelli is a deeply original thinker, so it is not surprising that he has novel views on the important questions of the nature and origin of science. Lee Smolin, founding member and researcher at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and author of The Trouble with Physics Winner of the Prix du Livre Haute Maurienne de l’Astronomie Carlo Rovelli, a leading theoretical physicist, uses the figure of Anaximander as the starting point for an examination of scientific thinking itself: its limits, its strengths, its benefits to humankind, and its controversial relationship with religion.
Anaximander, the sixth-century BC Greek philosopher, is often called the first scientist because he was the first to suggest that order in the world was due to natural forces, not supernatural ones. He is the first person known to understand that the Earth floats in space; to believe that the sun, the moon, and the stars rotate around itseven centuries before Ptolemy; to argue that all animals came from the sea and evolved; and to posit that universal laws control all change in the world.
13. Travels with Herodotus (Vintage International)
Author: by Ryszard Kapuscinski
Vintage
English
275 pages
From the renowned journalist comes this intimate account of his years in the field, traveling for the first time beyond the Iron Curtain to India, China, Ethiopia, and other exotic locales. In the 1950s, Ryszard Kapuscinski finished university in Poland and became a foreign correspondent, hoping to go abroad perhaps to Czechoslovakia.
Instead, he was sent to India the first stop on a decades-long tour of the world that took Kapuscinski from Iran to El Salvador, from Angola to Armenia. Revisiting his memories of traveling the globe with a copy of Herodotus’ Histories in tow, Kapuscinski describes his awakening to the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of new environments, and how the words of the Greek historiographer helped shape his own view of an increasingly globalized world.
Written with supreme eloquence and a constant eye to the global undercurrents that have shaped the last half-century, Travels with Herodotus is an exceptional chronicle of one man’s journey across continents.
14. Plutarch's Lives, Volume 2 (Modern Library Classics)
Author: by Plutarch
Modern Library
English
752 pages
Plutarch’s Lives, written at the beginning of the second century A.D., is a brilliant social history of the ancient world by one of the greatest biographers and moralists of all time. In what is by far his most famous and influential work, Plutarch reveals the character and personality of his subjects and how they led ultimately to tragedy or victory.
Richly anecdotal and full of detail, Volume I contains profiles and comparisons of Romulus and Theseus, Numa and Lycurgus, Fabius and Pericles, and many more powerful figures of ancient Greece and Rome. The present translation, originally published in 1683 in conjunction with a life of Plutarch by John Dryden, was revised in 1864 by the poet and scholar Arthur Hugh Clough, whose notes and preface are also included in this edition.
15. Roman Lives: A Selection of Eight Roman Lives (Oxford World's Classics)
Author: by Plutarch
0199537380
Oxford University Press
English
‘I treat the narrative of the Lives as a kind of mirror… The experience is like nothing so much as spending time in their company and living with them: I receive and welcome each of them in turn as my guest.’In the eight lives of this collection Plutarch introduces the reader to the major figures and periods of classical Rome.
He portrays virtues to be emulated and vices to be avoided, but his purpose is also implicitly to educate and warn those in his own day who wielded power. In prose that is rich,elegant and sprinkled with learned references, he explores with an extraordinary degree of insight the interplay of character and political action.
While drawing chiefly on historical sources, he brings to biography a natural story-teller’s ear for a good anecdote. Throughout the ages Plutarch’sLives have been valued for their historical value and their charm. This new translation will introduce new generations to his urbane erudition.
The most comprehensive selection available, it is accompanied by a lucid introduction, explanatory notes, bibliographies, maps and indexes. About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World’s Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford’s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expertintroductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
16. The Enchiridion
Author: by Epictetus,
12th Media Services
English
30 pages
Although he was born into slavery and endured a permanent physical disability, Epictetus (ca.50ca. 130 AD) maintained that all people are free to control their lives and to live in harmony with nature. We will always be happy, he argued, if we learn to desire that things should be exactly as they are.
After attaining his freedom, Epictetus spent his entire career teaching philosophy and advising a daily regimen of self-examination. His pupil Arrianus later collected and published the master’s lecture notes; the Enchiridion, or Manual, is a distillation of Epictetus’ teachings and an instructional manual for a tranquil life.
Full of practical advice, this work offers guidelines for those seeking contentment as well as for those who have already made some progress in that direction.
