Persian Fire: The First World Empire, Battle for the West: Amazon.co.uk: Tom Holland: Books

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'Tom Holland is a born storyteller' GUARDIAN 'Meticulous about literary and historical accuracy - scarily bright' DAILY TELEGRAPH

Sunday Times
‘Excellent’

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35 Reviews

5 star:		(16)
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4.3 out of 5 stars (35 customer reviews)

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82 of 92 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Persian Fire burns with an Olympic flame, 23 Oct 2005

By	Diana Swann (Portsmouth, Hants United Kingdom) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In this chronicle of the rise and fall of the Persian Empire Tom Holland emphasises thought-provoking parallels between past and present East/West confrontation. But readability does not depend on scholarship, political acumen and a sweeping sense of the larger historical picture alone. The reader is spellbound, as frail but wily Greeks outwit the Persian hordes and their gold-bedecked Great King. This is the stuff of camp-fire tales, told with the immediacy of an eye-witness: the stench, terror, tumult and unpredictability of swaying fortunes in the legendary battles of Thermopylae and Salamis have a cinematic reality. Narrative flow is maintained by Holland's ability to bridge facts with intelligent and imaginative supposition - a far more impressive bridge than Xerxes' short-lived two-mile pontoon between Asia and Europe. The tale is told with a telling mix of passion, humour and conversational persuasiveness. We are left in no doubt that European history would have taken a different course if the Persians had won in 480BC.

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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent popular history, 26 May 2006

By	P. Pensom (London) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Persian Fire: The First World Empire, Battle for the West (Paperback)

Last summer I was carried away to the far distant Roman republic in Holland's 'Rubicon', and enthralling as that book was, the author has excelled himself with 'Persian Fire'. This is partly because, unlike 'Rubicon', where he compressed centuries of events in to one modest book, 'Persian Fire' is far more narrow in scope, and hence moves forward with much greater narrative thrust.

If, like me, your knowledge of the titanic battles between Persia and Greece in 5th Century BC is scanty then you are in for a treat. I found myself unable to put this book down, greedily devouring chapters as if it were a novel. In 'Rubicon', the sheer breadth of the book meant it was easy to become lost in the labyrinthine twists and turns of Roman politics, and often I had to remind myself of the identity of a character. In 'Persian Fire' however, the key events are dictated by a much smaller cast, and are all balanced around a central fulcrum: the great invasion of the west by the east. This gives the book incredible dynamism.

If I were to make one minor cavil, it would be that occasionally Holland tries too hard to make the story relevant to contemporary concerns. The book is littered with modish language and modern references which it would be much better without. Anyone with a passing interest in the subject will be enthralled with this narrative, without constant, obvious comparisons to the functioning of modern superpowers. And can we really be sure that buzzwords like 'spin' and 'bling' will make any more sense to future generations than anachronistic slang from the 1920s does to us? I think not, but otherwise that is only a slight blemish on an otherwise outstanding work.

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Stuff, 21 Jun 2007

By	J. Duducu (Ruislip) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Persian Fire: The First World Empire, Battle for the West (Paperback)

I have generally avoided the glut of ancient history books preferring less well known eras, so I consider Tom Holland my guide into these areas because he's always guaranteed to bring things to life and makes them accessible.

The stories he picks are always fascinating and are told by a master story teller not a dry academic. This is a masterclass in how to write accessible history.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars History at its very best
Darius, Cleomenes, Leonidas, the Persian Wars, Cyrus, Cleisthenes, and so on and so forth... they were all, quite frankly, just names to me that vaguely rung a bell. Read more

Published 1 month ago by Didier

5.0 out of 5 stars So just what was going on 2500 years ago in Greece?
Been meaning to read this for ages. I never got into Ancient History at School or University: bit too much `wars' and `gods' for me. Read more

Published 5 months ago by Big Al

2.0 out of 5 stars A bit plodding, pretentious and, frankly, over-rated
I found this book a real slog, which was a surprise. Tom Holland's Rubicon was an excellent work, but I'm guessing that Ancient Rome was his real area of expertise whereas this... Read more

Published 5 months ago by Kentspur

4.0 out of 5 stars fills the gap
If you want to find out what the link between Persia and Greece was read this

Published 7 months ago by M. French

4.0 out of 5 stars Great popular history
I greatly enjoyed Tom Holland's 'Rubicon', full of juicy gossip about those naughty Romans but also genuinely respectful of the little that was worthwile in their legacy... Read more

Published 11 months ago by lexo1941

4.0 out of 5 stars Vivid account
This fine book tells the story of an earlier war between East and West. In the fifth century BC, a global superpower was determined to bring order to what it regarded as two... Read more

Published 11 months ago by William Podmore

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic
A truly excellent book. Holland has a real talent for bringing the characters to life. He makes the events of two thousand years ago immediate and exiting by connecting them to... Read more

Published 12 months ago by Adam Graham Malster

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good but...
If you enjoyed the style Rubicon was written in then you'll enjoy Persian Fire's style too: very readable, well researched popular narrative history. Read more

Published 13 months ago by Grand Dizer

5.0 out of 5 stars Accessible and authoritative history
A superb and thoroughly enjoyable read.
The author is a gifted writer, conveying the events with immediacy and elegance, as well as obviously having a passion for the... Read more

Published 14 months ago by Nikolaos

5.0 out of 5 stars 300 the real story
As someone who enjoyed the Frank Miller film '300' but also reads history's this book was an interesting find. Read more

Published 15 months ago by Random Task

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	86% buy the item featured on this page: Persian Fire: The First World Empire, Battle for the West 4.3 out of 5 stars (35)
	6% buy Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom 4.5 out of 5 stars (10) �6.99
	4% buy Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic 4.7 out of 5 stars (60) �6.99
	2% buy The Classical World: An Epic History of Greece and Rome 4.1 out of 5 stars (15) �7.49


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Persian Fire: The First World Empire, Battle for the West (Hardcover)

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