5.0
Tides of War A Novel of Alcibiades and the Peloponnesian War
Steven Pressfield, author of the Sunday Times bestseller Gates of Fire, brings the conflict between Sparta and Athens to life in this epic story filled with triumph and tragedy.
"Pressfield's talent is awesome...an extraordinary work - an instant classic" -- DAVID GEMMELL
"No one writes better historical fiction than Steven Pressfield" -- VINCE FLYNN
"A masterful book" -- ***** Reader review
"A book to treasure" -- ***** Reader review
"A truly rewarding reading experience" -- ***** Reader review
********************************
ONE MAN. TWO ARMIES. THE FATE OF THE ANCIENT WORLD IN THE BALANCE.
Alcibiades: Kinsman of Pericles, protégé of Socrates, immortalised by Plutarch, Plato and Thucydides. An audacious soldier and charismatic leader without equal who would come to dominate the Peloponnesian War, the devastating twenty-seven-year conflict between Athens and Sparta that brought Greece to its knees at the end of the fifth century BC.
Undefeated on the battlefield, Alcibiades' popularity - and his political aspirations - fed the resentment of his rivals in Athens who secured his death warrant on a trumped-up charge of treason. Escaping to Sparta, he guided its legendary army from one military triumph to the next. Ultimately though, it was Athens that would claim his fiercest loyalty, their destinies inextricably intertwined.
Tides of War paints a dazzling portrait of a remarkable man whose fortunes mirrored the ebb and flow of the tides of war.
FictionAction & AdventureFairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & MythologyHistoricalAncientWar & Military
RELEASED2001
PUBLISHERBantam
LENGTH604
LANGUAGEEN
I was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, in 1943 to a Navy father and mother. I graduated from Duke University in 1965. In January of 1966, when I was on the bus leaving Parris Island as a freshly-minted Marine, I looked back and thought there was at least one good thing about this departure. "No matter what happens to me for the rest of my life, no one can ever send me back to this freakin' place again." Forty years later, to my surprise and gratification, I am far more closely bound to the young men of the Marine Corps and to all other dirt-eating, ground-pounding outfits than I could ever have imagined. GATES OF FIRE is one reason. Dog-eared paperbacks of this tale of the ancient Spartans have circulated throughout platoons of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan since the first days of the invasions. E-mails come in by hundreds. GATES OF FIRE is on the Commandant of the Marine Corps' Reading list. It is taught at West Point and Annapolis and at the Marine Corps Basic School at Quantico. TIDES OF WAR is on the curriculum of the Naval War College. From 2nd Battalion/6th Marines, which calls itself "the Spartans," to ODA 316 of the Special Forces, whose forearms are tattooed with the lambda of Lakedaemon, today's young warriors find a bond to their ancient precursors in the historical narratives of these novels. My struggles to earn a living as a writer (it took seventeen years to get the first paycheck) are detailed in my 2002 book, THE WAR OF ART. I have worked as an advertising copywriter, schoolteacher, tractor-trailer driver, bartender, oilfield roustabout and attendant in a mental hospital. I have picked fruit in Washington state and written screenplays in Tinseltown. With the publication of THE LEGEND OF BAGGER VANCE in 1995, I became a writer of books once and for all. My writing philosophy is, not surprisingly, a kind of warrior code — internal rather than external — in which the enemy is identified as those forms of self-sabotage that I have labeled "Resistance" with a capital R (in THE WAR OF ART) and the technique for combatting these foes can be described as "turning pro." I believe in previous lives. I believe in the Muse. I believe that books and music exist before they are written and that they are propelled into material being by their own imperative to be born, via the offices of those willing servants of discipline, imagination and inspiration, whom we call artists. My conception of the artist's role is a combination of reverence for the unknowable nature of "where it all comes from" and a no-nonsense, blue-collar demystification of the process by which this mystery is approached. In other words, a paradox. There's a recurring character in my books named Telamon, a mercenary of ancient days. Telamon doesn't say much. He rarely gets hurt or wounded. And he never seems to age. His view of the profession of arms is a lot like my conception of art and the artist: "It is one thing to study war, and another to live the warrior's life."
5.0
Tides of War A Novel of Alcibiades and the Peloponnesian War
Steven Pressfield, author of the Sunday Times bestseller Gates of Fire, brings the conflict between Sparta and Athens to life in this epic story filled with triumph and tragedy.
"Pressfield's talent is awesome...an extraordinary work - an instant classic" -- DAVID GEMMELL
"No one writes better historical fiction than Steven Pressfield" -- VINCE FLYNN
"A masterful book" -- ***** Reader review
"A book to treasure" -- ***** Reader review
"A truly rewarding reading experience" -- ***** Reader review
********************************
ONE MAN. TWO ARMIES. THE FATE OF THE ANCIENT WORLD IN THE BALANCE.
Alcibiades: Kinsman of Pericles, protégé of Socrates, immortalised by Plutarch, Plato and Thucydides. An audacious soldier and charismatic leader without equal who would come to dominate the Peloponnesian War, the devastating twenty-seven-year conflict between Athens and Sparta that brought Greece to its knees at the end of the fifth century BC.
Undefeated on the battlefield, Alcibiades' popularity - and his political aspirations - fed the resentment of his rivals in Athens who secured his death warrant on a trumped-up charge of treason. Escaping to Sparta, he guided its legendary army from one military triumph to the next. Ultimately though, it was Athens that would claim his fiercest loyalty, their destinies inextricably intertwined.
Tides of War paints a dazzling portrait of a remarkable man whose fortunes mirrored the ebb and flow of the tides of war.
FictionAction & AdventureFairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & MythologyHistoricalAncientWar & MilitaryCultural Heritage
RELEASED2001
PUBLISHERBantam
LENGTH604
LANGUAGEEN
I was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, in 1943 to a Navy father and mother. I graduated from Duke University in 1965. In January of 1966, when I was on the bus leaving Parris Island as a freshly-minted Marine, I looked back and thought there was at least one good thing about this departure. "No matter what happens to me for the rest of my life, no one can ever send me back to this freakin' place again." Forty years later, to my surprise and gratification, I am far more closely bound to the young men of the Marine Corps and to all other dirt-eating, ground-pounding outfits than I could ever have imagined. GATES OF FIRE is one reason. Dog-eared paperbacks of this tale of the ancient Spartans have circulated throughout platoons of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan since the first days of the invasions. E-mails come in by hundreds. GATES OF FIRE is on the Commandant of the Marine Corps' Reading list. It is taught at West Point and Annapolis and at the Marine Corps Basic School at Quantico. TIDES OF WAR is on the curriculum of the Naval War College. From 2nd Battalion/6th Marines, which calls itself "the Spartans," to ODA 316 of the Special Forces, whose forearms are tattooed with the lambda of Lakedaemon, today's young warriors find a bond to their ancient precursors in the historical narratives of these novels. My struggles to earn a living as a writer (it took seventeen years to get the first paycheck) are detailed in my 2002 book, THE WAR OF ART. I have worked as an advertising copywriter, schoolteacher, tractor-trailer driver, bartender, oilfield roustabout and attendant in a mental hospital. I have picked fruit in Washington state and written screenplays in Tinseltown. With the publication of THE LEGEND OF BAGGER VANCE in 1995, I became a writer of books once and for all. My writing philosophy is, not surprisingly, a kind of warrior code — internal rather than external — in which the enemy is identified as those forms of self-sabotage that I have labeled "Resistance" with a capital R (in THE WAR OF ART) and the technique for combatting these foes can be described as "turning pro." I believe in previous lives. I believe in the Muse. I believe that books and music exist before they are written and that they are propelled into material being by their own imperative to be born, via the offices of those willing servants of discipline, imagination and inspiration, whom we call artists. My conception of the artist's role is a combination of reverence for the unknowable nature of "where it all comes from" and a no-nonsense, blue-collar demystification of the process by which this mystery is approached. In other words, a paradox. There's a recurring character in my books named Telamon, a mercenary of ancient days. Telamon doesn't say much. He rarely gets hurt or wounded. And he never seems to age. His view of the profession of arms is a lot like my conception of art and the artist: "It is one thing to study war, and another to live the warrior's life."
