Persian Fire

SUMMARY:
In 480 B.C.E., Xerxes, the King of Persia, led an invasion of mainland Greece. Its success should have been a formality. For seventy years, victory--rapid, spectacular victory--had seemed the birthright of the Persian Empire. They had swept across the Near East, shattering ancient kingdoms, storming famous cities, putting together an empire which stretched from India to the shores of the Aegean. Xerxes ruled as the most powerful man on the planet. Yet somehow, astonishingly, against the largest expeditionary force ever assembled, the Greeks managed to hold out. Had the Greeks been defeated in the epochal naval battle at Salamis, not only would the West have lost its first struggle for independence and survival, but it is unlikely that there would ever have been such an entity as the West at all. Historian Holland combines scholarly rigor with novelistic depth and finds extraordinary parallels between the ancient world and our own.--From publisher description.

Tom Holland received a double first from Cambridge. He has adapted Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides and Virgil for BBC Radio. His previous book,
Rubicon,
was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and won the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History 2004.
Rubicon
is also available as an Abacus paperback as is his latest book,
Millennium.
All three books are available as audiobooks from Hachette Audio.

'Persian history comes grippingly to life'

Robert McCrum, Picks of the Year,
Observer

'A riveting narrative of the ancient world
...
Holland is a superbly gifted storyteller who brings the world of the Persian wars to life'

History Books of the Year,
Daily Telegraph

'All the elements that made the first book so exhilarating — his erudition, his cynicism, and above all his narrative zest — are present and correct in the new one, and the book contains one moment of drama (his description of the Athenian charge at the battle of Marathon as seen from inside the Greek hoplites' helmets) that will give you goosebumps'

History Books of the Year,
Sunday Times

'A magisterial account of the Greek-Persian wars, told with great authority and a novelistic colour and verve'

Christopher Hart, Book of the Year,
Independent on Sunday

'Notably fair and shrewd . . .
Persian Fire
makes good on the promise that Holland displayed in his Roman epic,
Rubicon

Boyd Tomkin, History Books of the Year,
Independent

'My most exciting historical narrative'

Jan Morris, Book of the Year,
Observer

'Excellent . . . Holland is a cool-headed historian who writes here no less authoritatively and engagingly on classical Greece than he did on ancient Rome in his last book,
Rubicon.
There is an even-handedness in his treatment of both Greek and Persian cultural riches that is rare'

Mary Beard,
Sunday Times

'Masterly and gripping
...
In his preface, Tom Holland expresses the hope that his "attempt to build a bridge between the worlds of academic and general readership does not end up appearing as vainglorious as did the two-mile pontoon which Xerxes built from Asia to Europe". On the contrary. He has conquered this new territory with more power and panache than any platform-heeled King of Kings'

Independent on Sunday

'Fab. Written in such a contemporary style, full of scholarship, about the relationship between the East and the West, stuff so dominant in our minds at the moment'

Tony Robinson,
The Word

'A great account of the Persian wars, and how a tiny Greece beat back Xerxes and his armada — not triumphalist but not politically correct either, and written by a great stylist for a wide audience'

Victor Davis Hanson,
National
Review
(USA)

'When a global superpower again has the confidence to spread its ways to the ends of the earth, Holland sees every reason to look at the first such power to have such an aim. When we cheerfully start wars to promote democracy, he offers a clear-eyed view of the wars in which democracy began'

Peter Stothard,
Times

'Tom Holland's panoramic and gripping book is an unequivocal argument for the relevance of ancient history
...
He has opened up a world for me and I am grateful'

Observer

'Vibrant, bloodthirsty popular history, told with a rich sense of irony and irresistible narrative timing . . . The account of the Battle of Thermopylae is surely the most exciting in print'

Dominic Sandbrook,
Daily Telegraph

'A pleasure for both general readers and the learned'

James Buchan,
Guardian

'A sober and balanced narrative .
..
Holland has a sense for the golden moment, is a widely read intellectual, shows a keen wit — and the result is an engaging story that the general public will find worth relearning'

Times Literary Supplement

'The Persian Wars are one of the great "David and Goliath" struggles of history, with a particular resonance today as the first truly historical clash between East and West. In the sweep and vividness of his prose Tom Holland does the subject proud'

J. F. Lazenby,
Literary Review

'Incendiary stuff. . . sparkling insight and no less sparkling writing'

Paul Cartledge,
Independent

'It is a mark of Tom Holland's success that, while the rest of us will find our pulses racing at this scintillating narrative of one of the great conflicts of the ancient world, a Greats examiner at Oxford could sit down with his pupils and chew over Holland's flamboyant analysis of events with equal advantage'

Peter Jones,
Sunday Telegraph

'A piece of relentlessly exciting historical storytelling'

Financial Times

'Holland wears his impressive scholarship lightly;
Persian Fire
is unputdownable'

Lucy Moore,
Daily Mail

'The battles of Marathon, Thermopylae and Salamis may have taken place more than 2,000 years ago, but Tom Holland was there, no doubt about it. He writes with a startling immediacy, and his battles are nail-biting cliff-hangers even if you know who's going to win'

Artemis Cooper, Book of the Year,
Evening Standard

'Accessible, erudite narrative history that does a fine job of telling the story without swallowing the propaganda'

Scotland on Sunday

'This book makes for a great read, but not one that should be perused at speed. Rather, it should be mused over and sifted in the mind. That's not to say that it is written in dry academic language. Holland presents his polemic in a lively prose that makes for a most entertaining story . . . Holland's book rings with the clamour of colourful war . . . a stirring account'

Irish Examiner

'A brilliant book. The prose is fresh, ornate, rich in metaphor, yet always clear and concise . . .
Persian Fire
is breathtakingly exciting, immensely informative, and resonating with lessons for the present'

Neil Faulkner,
Current World Archaeology

'A first-rate work of accessible scholarship
...
I know nothing that brings this ancient history to life better than this book'

Mark Golden,
The Toronto Globe and Mail

The First World Empire and the Battle for the West

Tom Holland

For Jamie and Caroline

First published in Great Britain in 2005 by Little, Brown This paperback edition published in 2005 by Abacus Reprinted 2006, 2007 (three times), 2009 (twice)

Copyright © Tom Holland 2005

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.