Ancient

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.

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....

Who was Rome's greatest general, statesman, and nation-builder: Caesar or Pompey?

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

Julius Caesar is one of the most famous figures of the ancient Roman world. A skillful general and leading politician of the late Roman Republic, he secured a 10-year proconsular command in the province of Gaul, during which he accumulated both wealth and power....

Tacitus is most famous for his amazing descriptions of the reign of Nero, one of the most ruthless and sadistic monarchs of all time....

More than 2,500 years ago, a confederation of small Greek city-states defeated the invading armies of Persia, the most powerful empire in the world....

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)....

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....

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....

The myths surrounding Sparta are as old as the city itself. Even in antiquity, Sparta was a unique society, considered an enigma. The Spartans' often bizarre rules and practices have the capacity to horrify as much they do to fascinate us today....

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

Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great were two of the greatest generals Rome had ever produced....

Hadrian's Wall is the largest and one of the most enigmatic historical monuments in Britain. Nothing else approaches its vast scale: a land wall running seventy-three miles from east to west and a sea wall stretching at least twenty-six miles down the Cumbrian coast....

In 89 A.D., following a failed insurrection by the governor of Upper Germania, the disgraced Legio XXI Rapax is dispatched to Pannonia, on the River Danube.

A new age has dawned for Rome. Following the brief reign of Emperor Nerva, Marcus Ulpius Trajan inherits the mantle of Caesar. A revered general and statesman, the senate a people of Rome greet his rise with an optimism not seen since the reign of Vespasian.

The leading scholars behind The Greek Plays present a collection of the best translations of the foremost Greek historians, presenting a sweeping history of ancient Greece as recorded by its first chroniclers....

James Lacey provides a comprehensive, persuasive, and engaging account of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire....

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....

The Gallic War is Julius Caesar's autobiographical diary of the wars in what is now France, Belgium, and parts of Britain, Germany, and Switzerland, in which he describes the battles that took place from 58 to 51 BCE when he fought the Germanic and Celtic peoples....

Mastering the West offers a thoroughly engrossing narrative of this century of battle in the western Mediterranean, while treating a full range of themes....

"Scipio Africanus: Greater Than Napoleon" throws down a historical gauntlet. Author B.H. Liddell Hart argues that Roman general Scipio, famed for defeating Hannibal, outshines even the mighty Napoleon. Published in 1927, the book dives deep into their strategies, campaigns, and leadership styles.

How to Think about War remains a foundational work for the study not only of ancient history, but also contemporary politics and international relations....

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....

Hundred Years War expert Professor Anne Curry presents an overview of the Hundred Years War, the longest-running and the most significant conflict in western Europe in the later Middle Ages....