Ancient

A New York Times-bestselling historian charts how and why societies from ancient Greece to the modern era chose to utterly destroy their foes, and warns that similar wars of obliteration are possible in our time....

A stunning portrait of Rome’s glory days, this is the definitive history of the Pax Romana—an ultimate superpower at the pinnacle of its greatness....

In this, the first prose history in European civilization, Herodotus describes the growth of the Persian Empire with force, authority, and style....

Hold the glory—and infamy—of ancient Rome in the palm of your hand in this extraordinary and accessible story of history’s greatest superpower, as told through humanity’s most universal object: the coin.

Telling the story of a man who stood against the overwhelming power of the mighty Roman empire, Hannibal is the biography of a man who, against all odds, dared to change the course of history....

In the year 493, the leader of a vast confederation of Gothic warriors, their wives, and children personally cut down Odoacer, the man famous for deposing the last Roman emperor in 476. That leader became Theoderic the Great (454-526)....

Genghis Khan built a formidable land empire, but he never crossed the sea. Yet by the time his grandson Kublai Khan had defeated the last vestiges of the Song empire and established the Yuan dynasty in 1279, the Mongols controlled the most powerful navy in the world.

The Achaemenid Persian kings ruled over the largest empire of antiquity, stretching from Libya to the steppes of Asia and from Ethiopia to Pakistan. In Persians, historian Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones tells the epic story of this dynasty and the world it ruled....

By 330 B.C.E., Alexander the Great had reached the pinnacle of success. Or so it seemed. He had defeated the Persian ruler Darius III and seized the capital city of Persepolis. His exhausted and traumatized soldiers were ready to return home to Macedonia.

A riveting account of ancient Rome's imperial bodyguard, the select band of soldiers who wielded the power to make - or destroy - the emperors they served....

By the Spear offers an exhilarating military narrative of the reigns of these two larger-than-life figures in one volume....

The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China presents us with an Eastern tradition of strategic thought....

Aurelian saved the Roman Empire from foreign invasion and collapse, earning him the title Restorer of the World from a grateful Senate. This is his story as restorer of the world....

In Mortal Republic, prize-winning historian Edward J. Watts offers a new history of the fall of the Roman Republic that explains why Rome exchanged freedom for autocracy. Listen to learn more....

The last and longest war of classical antiquity was fought in the early seventh century. It was ideologically charged and fought along the full length of the Persian-Roman frontier, drawing in all the available resources and great powers of the steppe world....