Sir Thomas More by Hals Holbein (Accessed via Wikipedia ) During lockdown, we had Time. Remember that? I was in my probationary year of teaching: almost certainly among the most exhausting years for any profession. All my time had been taken up with school work, and I regularly stayed at school until after 6pm, having arrived there at eight in the morning. Now, children, this is not sustainable and, very soon, I decided I didn’t like working where I was. Then I realised that I didn’t like teaching at all. But, in fact, neither was particularly true: I just needed to be true to myself and to say no, which would give me the ability to manage my work/life balance in a more appropriate way. What does this have to do with historical fiction, I hear you say? Well, during March 2020, we went into lockdown and suddenly I went from working ten-hour-days to ten-hour-weeks. I met up with my class on Google Meet, I put work up for them on a meticulously designed Google Classroom, but I just h...
Today's #HistFicThursdays blog is not fiction at all! Instead, I'm delighted to be sharing a Book Review for Simon Elliott's book Alexander the Great versus Julius Caesar - Who was the Greatest Commander in the Ancient World? I'm so grateful to Pen and Sword Books for providing me with a copy of this book.
These are two men I knew about vaguely, all the myths and legends and very little of the facts. And this book certainly took me deep into the intricacies of their military campaigns. It debunked a few of those myths I thought I knew, setting the record straight, and quite honestly making this pair a whole lot more engaging.
From the word go, I liked this book. Even before I got to the introduction, I loved the dedication. From it, I thought I might just have an inclination of which way the competition would go! The honesty of the author made the book very accessible, as he listed the fellow possible challengers for the title and why he had chosen these two.
There are a lot of Greek and Latin terms as you would expect, all italicised and well explained, and the attention to detail is excellent. This is a writer who knows his stuff! It's not a stuffy book, though. It's written in a way which made me feel as though I was listening to someone talking - a real skill in nonfiction! As you know, research is one of my favourite things about writing, and I'm looking forward to putting some of this new research into a story.
The layout worked well, looking first at one and then the other before drawing the comparison the title demanded. I feel like Elliott's pre-existing in-depth knowledge of the Roman side of the argument, compared to his admitted hero-worship of Alexander, led to a slightly different approach in the presentation of facts between the two, with Alexander's portion taking up the greater part of the book. This isn't a criticism, though, as it felt right to have these two men portrayed as the individuals they were and represented in an individual style.
The one thing I felt was an unfortunate omission was the lack of any maps. This was especially difficult with the explanation of the poleis states. Throughout the book, I continued to root out my own maps so I could be sure where we were. But I was invested enough in the narrative to make it worth my while hunting out the geography and - to me - it was not enough for the book to lose a star.
I did agree with the overall verdict, though not entirely for the same reasons as the author picked. But, as far as I can see, that just means the winner is definitely...
Nope - no spoilers here!
This is a competition of the highest calibre, written in a very accessible style. If ancient military history is your thing, you should read this book. No prior knowledge required, just an interest in the topic.
I received a free copy of this book in return for an honest review - which this absolutely is!
You can buy the book from Amazon UK - Amazon US - Waterstones - Pen and Sword
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