'The greatest historian that ever lived' Such was Macaulay's verdict on Thucydides (c. 460-400 BC) and his history of the Peloponnesian War, the momentous struggle between Athens …
'You know how to win a battle, Hannibal; you do not know how to use the victory!' Livy's great history of Rome contains, in Books 21 to 30, the definitive ancient account of …
'The bitter tragedy of human life-- horrors of death, attack, retreat, advance, and the great game of Destiny and Chance. ' In The Liberation of Jerusalem (Gerusalemme liberata, …
'He was a man like no other man has ever been' So Arrian sums up the career of Alexander the Great of Macedon (356-323 BC), who in twelve years that changed the world led his army …
'I think I could be a good woman if I had five thousand a year.' Becky Sharp is sharp, calculating, and determined to succeed. Craving wealth and a position in society, she charms, …
`The story I now commence is rich in vicissitudes, grim with warfare, torn by civil strife, a tale of horror even during times of peace.' Edward Gibbon called The Histories an …
'If you had asked me why I had joined the militia I should have answered: "To fight against Fascism," and if you had asked me what I was fighting for, I should have answered: …
`All over Italy men were conscripted, and weapons requisitioned; money was exacted from towns, and taken from shrines; and all the laws of god and man were overturned.' The …
'What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?' The First World War produced an extraordinary flowering of poetic talent, from poets whose words commemorate the conflict as …
'I am doing your Majesty some service here, whilst I am preparing the story of your sufferings; that posterity may know by whose default the nation was even overwhelmed with …
