Showing posts with label Egypt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Egypt. Show all posts

Monday, October 29, 2012

Cleopatra and 2,000 Years of Slander

Cleopatra is what you might call the epitome of a VIP. After more than 2,000 years, she is as present as if she were still alive. Such eminence lends itself to storytellers and moralists alike. It offers any number of pitfalls for historians and writers, too. 


Sunday, October 14, 2012

Naval Arms Race in The Mediterranean

The history of the Mediterranean Sea is the history of naval development and armament. Ships played an important part in the Persian Wars of the Greek city states against the Persian Empire as well as in the Peloponnese War between Sparta and Athens and their allies. The Punic Wars of the Romans saw a lot of naval action as well as their in-house squabbles leading up to Octavian taking power as Emperor Augustus. 


Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Secret War in Yemen

Many people claim to have unearthed secrets from the near past. Some of those secrets were never a secret; most are nothing more than conspiracy theories. It was therefore nice to find a book about a secret war that really was carefully kept under wraps. At the least, for various reasons, it escaped wider scrutiny so far.