Holland, Tom

"Christianity is the most enduring and influential legacy of the ancient world, and its emergence is the single most transformative development in Western history. [This book] explores what it was that made Christianity so revolutionary and why, in a West that has become increasingly doubtful of religion's claims, so many of its instincts remain irredeemably Christian. Today, the West remains utterly saturated by Christian assumptions. Our morals and ethics are not universal. Instead, they are the fruits of a very distinctive civilization. Concepts such as secularism, liberalism, science, and homosexuality are deeply rooted in a Christian seedbed. From Babylon to the Beatles, Saint Michael to #MeToo, . . . tells the story of how Christianity transformed the world"Provided by publisher.

Chronicles the history of the Augustus family's ruling of ancient Rome, discussing Tiberius, the great general who ended up a bitter recluse, Caligula, the master of cruely and humiliation, Claudius, the near cripple whose underestimation probably led to his survival and accession to the emperorship and more.

Recounts the fall of the Roman Republic, tracing the events that marked the final century B.C. and discussing such topics as the rise of Alexandria and the contributions of such figures as Caesar, Cleopatra, Brutus, and Augustus. In 49 B.C., the seven hundred fifth year since the founding of Rome, Julius Caesar crossed a small border river called the Rubicon and plunged Rome into cataclysmic civil war. Tom Holland's enthralling account tells the story of Caesar's generation, witness to the twilight of the Republic and its bloody transformation into an empire. From Cicero, Spartacus, and Brutus, to Cleopatra, Virgil, and Augustus, here are some of the most legendary figures in history brought thrillingly to life. Combining verve and freshness with scrupulous scholarship, Rubicon is not only an engrossing history of this pivotal era but a uniquely resonant portrait of a great civilization in all its extremes of self-sacrifice and rivalry, decadence and catastrophe, intrigue, war, and world-shaking ambition.

No less significant than the collapse of the Roman Republic or the Persian invasion of Greece, the evolution of the Arab empire is one of the supreme narratives of ancient history, a story dazzlingly rich in drama, character, and achievement. Just like the Romans, the Arabs came from nowhere to carve out a stupefyingly vast dominion?except that they achieved their conquests not over the course of centuries as the Romans did but in a matter of decades. Just like the Greeks during the Persian wars, they overcame seemingly insuperable odds to emerge triumphant against the greatest empire of the day?not by standing on the defensive, however, but by hurling themselves against all who lay in their path.

Describes the very first conflict between East and West, recounting the events surrounding Xerxes, the King of Persia's, invasion of mainland Greece in 180 B.C. and discussing how the Greeks of the mainland managed to avoid the Persian Empire's attempts at conquest.