Ancient Angkor by Michael Freeman

$14.00 NZD

Category: Ancient History | Series: River Books Guide Ser.

Prior to the nineteenth century, the independent kingdom of Lanna flourished in Northern Thailand. Lanna stretched as far north from Phitsanulok to Chiang Rai, as far east as present day Laos and as far west as Burma. Over the centuries, Lanna developed a distinctive art, architecture, languag e, and cu lture. ...Show more

The Cave of Lascaux - The Final Photographic Record by Mario Ruspoli

$30.00 NZD

Category: Art | Reading Level: very good

The cave of Lascaux -- the "Sistine Ceiling of the Cave Man" -- is a spectacular window into the shadowy, powerful animal world of the Old Stone Age, some 17,000 years ago. The chance discovery of two boys in France in 1940, the cave was soon overwhelmed by tourists and in the early 1960s showed inescap able evidence that its radiant frescoes of bison, aurochs, horses, and deer were dimming with molds and fungi generated by bright lights and the warmth and breath of countless visitors.Lascaux was sealed in 1963 by the French government, which later commissioned the distinguished prehistorian and television producer MARLO RUSPOLI to create a record of its now permanently inaccessible wonders. In the early 1980s, hemmed in by infinite precautions, Ruspoli carefully filmed and photographed Lascaux. Here, complete with discussions of the content and meaning of the frescoes by Ruspoli and other experts in prehistoric art, is the thrilling result: the last view of the Stone Age life and world of Lascaux. ...Show more

The Age of Gladiators - Savagery and Spectacle in Ancient Rome by Rupert Matthews

$10.00 NZD

Category: Ancient History | Reading Level: very good

Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar by Tom Holland

$16.00 NZD

Category: Ancient History | Reading Level: very good

Rome was first ruled by kings, then became a republic. But in the end, after conquering the world, the Republic collapsed. Rome was drowned in blood. So terrible were the civil wars that the Roman people finally came to welcome the rule of an autocrat who could give them peace. 'Augustus', their new mas ter called himself: 'The Divinely Favoured One'. The lurid glamour of the dynasty founded by Augustus has never faded. No other family can compare for sheer unsettling fascination with its gallery of leading characters. Tiberius, the great general who ended up a bitter recluse, notorious for his perversions; Caligula, the master of cruelty and humiliation who rode his chariot across the sea; Agrippina, the mother of Nero, manoeuvering to bring to power the son who would end up having her murdered; Nero himself, racing in the Olympics, marrying a eunuch, and building a pleasure palace over the fire-gutted centre of his capital. Now, in the sequel to Rubicon, Tom Holland gives a dazzling portrait of Rome's first imperial dynasty. Dynasty traces the full astonishing story of its rule of the world: both the brilliance of its allure, and the blood-steeped shadows cast by its crimes. Ranging from the great capital rebuilt in marble by Augustus to the dank and barbarian-haunted forests of Germany, it is populated by a spectacular cast: murderers and metrosexuals, adulterers and druids, scheming grandmothers and reluctant gladiators. Dynasty is the portrait of a family that transformed and stupefied Rome. ...Show more

Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland

$10.00 NZD

Category: Ancient History | Reading Level: good

In 49 B.C., the seven hundred fifth year since the founding of Rome, Julius Caesar crossed a small border river called the Rubicon and plunged Rome into cataclysmic civil war. Tom Holland s enthralling account tells the story of Caesar s generation, witness to the twilight of the Republic and its bloody transformation into an empire. From Cicero, Spartacus, and Brutus, to Cleopatra, Virgil, and Augustus, here are some of the most legendary figures in history brought thrillingly to life. Combining verve and freshness with scrupulous scholarship, "Rubicon "is not only an engrossing history of this pivotal era but a uniquely resonant portrait of a great civilization in all its extremes of self-sacrifice and rivalry, decadence and catastrophe, intrigue, war, and world-shaking ambition." ...Show more

Daily Life Of The Etruscans by Jacques Heurgon

$12.00 NZD

Category: Ancient History | Reading Level: very good

The Archaeology of Early Rome and Latium by R. Ross Holloway

$14.00 NZD

Category: Ancient History | Reading Level: very good

The archaeology of early Rome has progressed rapidly and dramatically over the last century; most recently with the discovery of the shrine of Aeneas at Lavinium and the reports of the walls of the Romulan city discovered on the city slopes of the Palatine Hill. The Archaeology of Early Rome and Latium presents the most recent discoveries in Rome and its surroundings: princely tombs, inscriptions and patrician houses are included in a complete overview of the subject and the controversies surrounding it.This comprehensively illustrated study fills the need for an accessible English guide to these new discoveries, and in preparation, the author interviewed most of the leading figures in current research on the early periods of Rome. ...Show more

The Aeneid by Virgil

$8.00 NZD

Category: Latin Literature | Reading Level: good

"The Aeneid" of Virgil (70-19 B.C.) describes the legendary origin of the Roman nation. It tells of the Trojan prince Aeneas, who escaped, with some followers, after Troy fell, and sailed to Italy. Here they settled and laid the foundations of Roman power. The Aeneid is a poet's picture of the world, wh ere human affairs are controlled byhuman and superhuman influences. It is a literary epic inspired by Virgil's love of his native Italy and his sense of Rome's destiny as a civilized ruler of nations. This translation by W.F. Jackson Knight aims to preserve the range, vitality, and music of the original. ...Show more

Cleopatra: Queen, Lover, Legend by Lucy Hughes-Hallett

$12.00 NZD

Category: Biography | Reading Level: good

This is a gripping book...A fascinating account of the way in which succeeding generations have seen Cleopatra; as virtuous suicide, inefficient housewife, exuberant lover, professional courtesan, scheming manipulator, femme fatale, incarnation of Isis and bimbo' - Economist

Sophocles II by Sophocles; David Grene (Editor); Richmond A. Lattimore (Editor)

$10.00 NZD

Category: Greek Literature | Series: Complete Greek Tragedies Ser. | Reading Level: very good

"These authoritative translations consign all other complete collections to the wastebasket."—Robert Brustein, The New Republic "This is it. No qualifications. Go out and buy it everybody."—Kenneth Rexroth, The Nation "The translations deliberately avoid the highly wrought and affectedly poetic; their idiom is contemporary....They have life and speed and suppleness of phrase."—Times Education Supplement "These translations belong to our time. A keen poetic sensibility repeatedly quickens them; and without this inner fire the most academically flawless rendering is dead."—Warren D. Anderson, American Oxonian "The critical commentaries and the versions themselves...are fresh, unpretentious, above all, functional."—Commonweal "Grene is one of the great translators."—Conor Cruise O'Brien, London Sunday Times "Richmond Lattimore is that rara avis in our age, the classical scholar who is at the same time an accomplished poet."—Dudley Fitts, New York Times Book Review ...Show more

Heracles and Other Plays

$10.00 NZD

Category: Greek Literature

"Heracles", "Iphigenia Among the Taurians", "Helen", "Ion", and "Cyclops": Of these plays, only "Heracles" truly belongs in the tragic sphere with its presentation of underserved suffering and divine malignity. The other plays flirt with comedy and comic themes. Their plots are ironic and complex with d eception and elusion eventually leading to reconciliation between mother and son in "Ion", brother and sister in "Iphigenia", and husband and wife in "Helen". The comic vein is even stronger in the satyric "Cyclops" in which the giant's inebriation and subsequent violence are treated as humorous. Together, these plays demonstrate Euripides' challenge to the generic boundaries of Athenian drama. ...Show more

The Western Greeks: The History of Sicily and South Italy from the Foundation of the Greek Colonies to 480BC by T. J. Dunbabin

$55.00 NZD

Category: Ancient History | Reading Level: good-very good