Best Selling Books by Robin Waterfield

"A brilliant, up-to-date account of all of ancient Greek history (the Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods), suitable for history buffs and university students, enlivened by a strong thesis about the disunity of the Greeks, their underlying cultural unity, and their eventual political unification"--

A highly readable and beautifully illustrated re-telling of the most famous stories from Greek mythology. The Greek Myths contains some of the most thrilling, romantic, and unforgettable stories in all human history. From Achilles rampant on the fields of Troy, to the gods at sport on Mount Olympus; from Icarus flying too close to the sun, to the superhuman feats of Heracles, Theseus, and the wily Odysseus, these timeless tales exert an eternal fascination and inspiration that have endured for millennia and influenced cultures from ancient to modern. Beginning at the dawn of human civilization, when the Titan Prometheus stole fire from Zeus and offered mankind hope, the reader is immediately immersed in the majestic, magical, and mythical world of the Greek gods and heroes. As the tales unfold, renowned classicist Robin Waterfield, joined by his wife, writer Kathryn Waterfield, creates a sweeping panorama of the romance, intrigues, heroism, humour, sensuality, and brutality of the Greek myths and legends. The terrible curse that plagued the royal houses of Mycenae and Thebes, Jason and the golden fleece, Perseus and the dread Gorgon, the wooden horse and the sack of Troy--these amazing stories have influenced art and literature from the Iron Age to the present day. And far from being just a treasure trove of amazing tales, The Greek Myths is a catalogue of Greek myth in art through the ages, and a notable work of literature in its own right.

In Hidden Depths, Robin Waterfield explores the fascinating world of hypnosis, tracing the history of this often misunderstood craft beginning with a passage in the book of Genesis, and continuing through his own personal experiences today. Waterfield uses the history and controversy surrounding the practice of hypnosis to gain insight into our behavior and psychology, and considers how hypnotic techniques have been absorbed into society through advertising, media and popular culture.

Everyone has heard of Alexander the Great, the famous conqueror. But what happened after his death to the lands he had conquered? It took forty years of world-changing warfare for his successors to carve up the empire. This thrilling period of unremitting warfare, treachery, assassination, passion, shifting alliances, and mass slaughter, has been neglected. Dividing the Spoils resurrects the fascinating story of this period - both the warfare and theworld-changing cultural developments that were taking place at the same time.

Born in the mountains of northern Lebanon, Kahlil Girbran (1883-1931) - mystic, society philosopher, author of one of the most enduring works of the 20th century, The Prophet - immigrated to the United States in 1895. A gifted artist, who specialized in painting for some years before he turned to writing, Gibran - although initially spurned by those whose approval he sought - was in time beloved by a number of prominent avant-gardists and hobnobbed with the rich and famous of Henry James''s turn-of-the-century Boston. He then set his sights on the bohemian world of Greenwich Village in its early heyday before World War I. Gibran is known for the peace and optimism that permeates his work. Paradoxically, however, his life was littered with personal tragedies, conflicted sexuality, and deep heartache. Robin Waterfield skillfully traces Gibran''s development from wounded Romantic and angry young man to his final metamorphosis as the Prophet of New York and shows what influences - psychological, social, and literary - led to these various phases. In fact, the road to the extraordinary success of The Prophet was not smooth or peaceful and tragically, Gibran himself did not live to see the phenomenal sales the book subsequently achieved. A complete reappraisal of all the remaining primary sources on Gibran''s life and character, PROPHET is a brilliant work that reveals this Svengali-like guru of the New Age as a deeply unhappy, even tortured man.

A revisionist account of the most famous trial and execution in Western civilization — one with great resonance for modern society In the spring of 399 BCE, the elderly philosopher Socrates stood trial in his native Athens. The court was packed, and after being found guilty by his peers, Socrates died by drinking a cup of poison hemlock, his execution a defining moment in ancient civilization. Yet time has transmuted the facts into a fable. Aware of these myths, Robin Waterfield has examined the actual Greek sources, presenting a new Socrates, not an atheist or guru of a weird sect, but a deeply moral thinker, whose convictions stood in stark relief to those of his former disciple, Alcibiades, the hawkish and self-serving military leader. Refusing to surrender his beliefs even in the face of death, Socrates, as Waterfield reveals, was determined to save a morally decayed country that was tearing itself apart. Why Socrates Died is then not only a powerful revisionist book, but a work whose insights translate clearly from ancient Athens to the present day.

Addressing a marginalized era of Greek and Roman history, Taken at the Flood offers a compelling narrative of Rome''s conquest of Greece.

An up-to-date accessible history of the phenomenal rise and fall of the greatest city of antiquity, describing its rise to pre-eminence and rapid demise as the greatest of all Greek tragedies. The first history of the city to continue the story through 1500 years of obscurity to its romantic revival under Byron''s influence and up to the present day, is eminently qualified to write this book. A classicist by training, he has translated many of the key texts for Penguin Classics and OUP, is intimate with the latest scholarship and travels to Greece every year.

This book, the first ever biography of the father of philosophy, tracks Plato''s life from his childhood in war-torn Athens at the end of the fifth century BCE to his founding of the Academy, adventures in Sicily, death, and immense legacy. Throughout, it sheds light on Plato''s many timeless works of philosophy.

Alexander the Great conquers the New York Times best-selling Who Was...? series! When Alexander was a boy in ancient Macedon, he already had grand ambitions. He complained that his father, the great king of Macedon, wasn''t leaving anything for him to conquer! This, of course, was not the case. King Alexander went on to control most of the known world of the time. His victories won him many supporters, but they also earned him enemies. This easy-to-read biography offers a fascinating look at the life of Alexander and the world he lived in.

A young boy runs away from an orphanage and meets up with some unsavory companions in London.

"With this first masterpiece of Western military history forming the backbone of his book, Robin Waterfield explores what remains unsaid and assumed in Xenophon''s account - much about the gruesome nature of ancient battle and logistics, the lives of Greek and Persian soldiers, and questions of historical, political, and personal context, motivation, and conflicting agendas. The result is a rounded version of the story of Cyrus''s ill-fated march and the Greeks'' perilous retreat - a nuanced and dramatic perspective on a critical moment in history that may tell us as much about our present-day adventures in the Middle East, site of Cyrus''s debacle and the last act of the Golden Age, as it does about the great powers of antiquity in a volatile period of transition."--BOOK JACKET.

The Making of a King is the first book in more than a century to tell the gripping story of the rule of Antigonus Gonatas: how he gained the Macedonian throne, how he held it, the nature of his court, the measures he took towards the Greeks, and their responses.

Reni Guinon (1886-1951) is undoubtedly one of the luminaries of the twentieth century, whose critique of the modern world has stood fast against the shifting sands of recent philosophies. His oeuvre of 26 volumes is providential for the modern seeker: pointing ceaselessly to the perennial wisdom found in past cultures ranging from the Shamanistic to the Indian and Chinese, the Hellenic and Judaic, the Christian and Islamic, and including also Alchemy, Hermeticism, and other esoteric currents, at the same time it directs the reader to the deepest level of religious praxis, emphasizing the need for affiliation with a revealed tradition even while acknowledging the final identity of all spiritual paths as they approach the summit of spiritual realization. This is the only biographical introduction to Guinon currently available in English. Sophia Perennis will soon publish another biography, The Simple Life of Reni Guinon, written shortly after Guinon''s death by his close friend and publisher PaulChacornac. After a lonely childhood, often interrupted by ill health, Guinon navigated the seductive half-truths of occultism toward a deeper, unified vision offering a way out from the confusion and fragmentation of our time. Against the seemingly inexorable process of dissolution the twentieth century experienced, Guinon pointed to the transcendent unity of all religious faiths and the abiding Truth that contains them all.

When it was originally published this book broke new ground in presenting one continuous narrative of the history of Christians in Persia from the second century A.D to the 1970s. The material gathered here was previously only to be found in obscure books, manuscripts and foreign periodicals. Christians in Persia shows the intricate history of the period concerned; the personalities of the rulers and the ruled; the difficult task of the missionaries; their successes and failures and the consequences of their efforts. All this is related to the wider history of the country and to the expansion of Christianity in the East.

Correspondence between David Low and Graham Greene from 1971-1984.

In this engaging narrative, noted classicist Waterfield traces the life and history of Athens, a city whose idealized past continues to inspire the present.