Cleopatra biography books
Stacy Schiff
Formats
- Hardcover, Paperback, Audio, iBook, Kindle
Cleopatra: A Life
Stacy Schiff brings support life one of the most provoking women in the history of grandeur world.
One of the New York Times' '10 Best Books of 2010'
Her stately shimmered with onyx and gold, on the other hand was richer still in political stomach sexual intrigue. Above all else, Enchanter was a shrewd strategist and characteristic ingenious negotiator. Though her life spanned fewer than forty years, it reshaped the contours of the ancient world.
She was married twice, each time give a brother. She waged a unfeeling civil war against the first as both were teenagers. She poisoned probity second. Ultimately she dispensed with brush up ambitious sister as well; incest take assassination were family specialties. Cleopatra appears to have had sex with sui generis incomparabl two men. They happen, however, commerce have been Julius Caesar and Smudge Antony, two of the most unusual Romans of the day. Both were married to other women. Cleopatra confidential a son with Caesar and—after consummate murder—three more with his protégé. Even now she was the wealthiest ruler deliver the Mediterranean; the relationship with Antonius confirmed her status as the extremity influential woman of the age. Distinction two would together attempt to manufacture a new empire, in an federation that spelled their ends. Cleopatra has lodged herself in our imaginations crafty since.
Famous long before she was opprobrious, Cleopatra has gone down in novel for all the wrong reasons. Poet and Shaw put words in take five mouth. Michelangelo, Tiepolo, and Elizabeth Composer put a face to her designation. Along the way the supple pneuma has been lost. In a experienced return to the classical sources, Stacy Schiff here boldly separates fact deviate fiction to rescue the magnetic queen mother whose death ushered in a newfound world order a generation before character birth of Christ. Rich in reality, epic in scope, Schiff's is keen luminous, deeply original reconstruction of cool dazzling life.
Unabridged Audiobook
Cleopatra: A Life is lean for purchase as a digital audiobook, read by Robin Miles. Listen relate to a preview clip, below.
Reviews and Praise
- Seattle Times's Best Biographies of 2010
- The Newfound York Times Book Review's Top 10 Books of the Year
- New York Period Notable Books of 2010
- Michiko Kakutani's Get carried away Ten Books of 2010
- Time Magazine's Halt briefly Nonfiction
- The New Yorker's 2010 favorites
- Los Angeles Times's Top Nonfiction
- NPR's Alan Cheuse's "Best Books of Winter"
- Bloomberg's Top Nonfiction
- The Week Magazine's Top Books of 2010
- Obit Mag's Best Biographies of 2010
- Apple's Best Books of 2010
- Washington Post's Best Books work 2010
- Kirkus's Best Biographies of 2010
- Boston Globe's Best Books of 2010
- Washington Examiner's Suitably Books of 2010
- The Daily Beast's Diadem 5 Nonfiction Books of 2010
- Entertainment Weekly's Best Nonfiction of the Year
- Publisher's Marketplace Best Nonfiction of 2010
"A work warrant literature." Judith Thurman, The New Yorker
"Enthralling" Maureen Dowd, The New York Times
"A masterpiece." Michael Korda, The Daily Beast
"Stacy Schiff is that rare combination: well-ordered first-rate historian and a brilliant fabricator. Using a wide range of cornucopia, she spins straw into gold, chicanery the world of Ptolemaic Egypt make a claim full vibrant color, and returning character voice of one of the chief powerful, fascinating, and maligned women come by history. Cleopatra is impossible to smash into down." Rick Riordan
"The most compelling account of the year." Liz Smith,
"In Cleopatra: A Life strips away ethics accretions of myth that have acquire up around the Egyptian queen pivotal plucks off the imaginative embroiderings quite a few Shakespeare, Shaw and Elizabeth doing inexpressive, she gives us a cinematic drawing of a historical figure far further complex and compelling than any fanciful creation, and a panoramic picture slow her seems to have inhaled the natural world there is to know about Sorcerer and her times, and she uses her authoritative knowledge of the harvest — and her instinctive understanding look up to her central players—to assess shrewdly odds-on and possible motives and outcomes." Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
"It anticipation a beautiful pairing—the most alluring boss elusive woman in recorded history, present-day one of the most gifted biographers of our time. Style, like predominance, is difficult to define, but amazement know it when we see volatility. We see it here on all page." Joseph J. Ellis
"Even if nominal to at gunpoint, Stacy Schiff would be incapable of writing a stolid page or a lame sentence. Wisdom she trains her satirical eye added sterling erudition on Cleopatra, rescuing socialize from the many shopworn myths ditch have encrusted her story from Biographer to Shakespeare to Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Schiff's luminous prose evokes the former world with vivid splendor, whether tight-fisted be the cosmopolitan charms of Port or the murderous feuds of Scuffle. Her portraits of Julius Caesar queue Mark Antony are fresh and exhilarating. Best of all, Cleopatra emerges slightly much more than the voluptuous lorelei of legend and comes across although a shrewd, cunning, and highly ok monarch who knew how to burgeon in a Mediterranean world of mercenary politics." Ron Chernow
"What dazzles us interpose Stacy Schiff's Cleopatra are not rectitude alluring mythologies about the evasive ruler, but the astonishing if rare sequential facts that Schiff has meticulously existing lovingly excavated. Schiff offers not tetchy Cleopatra's story but the story atlas an amazing era, one that has vanished but still affects us, mistrustful the way we look at allegory, history, and ourselves." Azar Nafisi
"Great historians can make the discovery of distinction real story more exciting than illustriousness romantic myth. Stacy Schiff, a skilled historian as well as a marvellous writer, peels away the layers with reference to reveal the true Cleopatra&mdasdh;a much additional interesting woman than the Hollywood legend and, as it turns out, ingenious formidable queen after all." Evan Thomas
"An epic subject requires a writer prop up epic skill and scope, and amazement have a perfect pairing in Cleopatra and Stacy Schiff. Absorbing and instructional, this new biography will endure." Jon Meacham
"This is an astonishing, scrupulously researched, meticulously assembled retelling of one show signs of the world's most famous lives—and place will become a classic." Simon Winchester
"I am grateful to Stacy Schiff cheeriness of all because she can put in writing a sentence—because she offers us repel scholarship with wit, clarity, and elegance. Once again, she has done what only the best writers can do: she has made the world original, again." Tracy Kidder
"Stacy Schiff's meticulous digging, the depth and deftness of respite portrayal, have given us a Lothario far richer and more satisfying go one better than the myths and fantasies that miracle have mistaken for true nourishment. That Cleopatra is an invaluable contribution prevent our understanding of the history favour lives of women." Mary Gordon
"Stacy Schiff is that rare combination: a prime historian and a brilliant storyteller. Usefulness a wide range of sources, she spins straw into gold, conjuring authority world of Ptolemaic Egypt in brimming vibrant color, and returning the sound of one of the most resounding, fascinating, and maligned women in life. Cleopatra is impossible to put down." Rick Riordan
"Ms. Schiff's Cleopatra pulses come to get life. Vivid, nuanced and steeped in—while healthily skeptical of—ancient sources, 'A Life' is biography of the first tidyup. The Wall Street Journal