James Heneage nutre un fascino duraturo per la storia, in particolare per gli intricati cicli di ascesa e caduta degli imperi. Dopo aver fondato e successivamente venduto una catena di librerie di successo, si è dedicato a ricerche storiche approfondite, concentrandosi infine sul declino dell'Impero Bizantino. La sua scrittura approfondisce le complesse dinamiche di potere e collasso che hanno plasmato le civiltà. L'approccio di Heneage combina intuizione accademica e narrazione avvincente, offrendo ai lettori una vivida esplorazione di epoche storiche cruciali.
'One hell of a fine book' Conn Iggulden ROME NEVER FELL. IT BECAME BYZANTIUM. AS OTTOMAN FORCES INVADE, ONE MAN MUST DEFEND HIS COUNTRY AND FACE HIS OWN PERSONAL DESTINY... A rich tale of clashing empires and trade wars, lost treasure and tempestuous love in an age when the fate of the world hung on the survival of Byzantium, the hinge between east and west. Luke Magoris, a descendant of the princes of England, is a man with a rare talent for war and trade. To him falls the overwhelming task of defending his beloved Mistra against the rampant Ottoman forces.
Europe lies at the mercy of the invading Ottomans and hero Luke Magoris must
unite the greatest warrior of the age and a lost Anglo Saxon treasure in time
to rescue the Byzantine empire in the second of the epic Mistra Chronicles.
Philosophy, art, democracy, language, even computers -- our world has been shaped by the products of Greek civilisation. Yet most of us know little about a people and a place that have given us so much. Pericles and the Parthenon may be familiar, but what of Epaminondas, the Theban general who saved the Greek world from Spartan tyranny? Alexander the Great's fame has rolled down the centuries, but the glorious Hellenistic Age that came after him is largely forgotten. 'Byzantine' often conjures a vague notion of decadence and deadly intrigue, yet the 1,000-year empire ruled from Constantinople saved Europe twice from invasion and was, in fact, Greek.The story of modern Greece, too, is a dramatic tale of triumph and catastrophe, from liberation and expansion through schism and home-grown dictatorship, Nazi occupation and civil war to today's nation -- battered by austerity, a transit camp for the casualties of the Middle East, at the front-line of climate change -- yet still proud of its values.The Shortest History of Greece, James Heneage charts the odyssey of the Greeks through more than three millennia. As he does so, he uncovers a vital lesson -- one that may just help us fix our own democracies.
An epic novel set in fifteenth-century Europe, featuring dynastic conflicts
against a backdrop of the first great clash between Christianity and Islam.
