Persian Fire

The First World Empire and the Battle for the West

By: Tom Holland

Narrated by: Michael Page

Length: 14 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

In the fifth century BC, a global superpower was determined to bring truth and order to what it regarded as two terrorist states. The superpower was Persia, incomparably rich in ambition, gold, and men. The terrorist states were Athens and Sparta, eccentric cities in a poor and mountainous backwater: Greece. The story of how their citizens took on the Great King of Persia, and thereby saved not only themselves, but Western civilization as well, is as heart-stopping and fateful as any episode in history. Tom Holland's brilliant study of these critical Persian Wars skillfully examines a conflict of critical importance to both ancient and modern history.

©2005 Tom Holland (P)2016 Tantor

Another book about Greeks

What does Michael Page bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

I can't say the narrator provides something that reading could not. However, the dramatized tone of this book could have been disastrous in less capable hands. Page's reading makes the text dramatic, where it might otherwise come across as corny.

Any additional comments?

Perhaps I did not adequately preview this book before purchase -- I was disappointed to discover that it is much more focused on a making-present of the Hellenistic "story" of the Persian threat than the Persian Empire itself. To that end, it is successful, so long as one is interested in the Greek narrative (as opposed to an anaylitical historical text -- there are a number of episodes recounted without aside which range from dubious to downright Greek fiction). I found value in this book, as it colorizes and synthesizes a number of (primarily Greek) sources elegantly. If you are unfamiliar with the details of the Greek resistance, this is an excellent place to start. The downside of this emphasis is that it has been done a number of times, and though this installment is a worthy telling of the Greek story, it is still, at root, a telling of the same, much-told story of Greek resistance.

This book is NOT an examination of the Persian Empire. Anyone desiring to learn more about Cyrus/Cambyses/Darius will likely be disappointed when, about an hour into the audiobook, Cyrus and Cambyses are already dead, and the book has turned to detailed considerations of Athenian and Spartan societies.

History well-told, as a story

Well-written and excellently performed by the narrator. If you have any interest in the ancient conflict between Persia and Greece, this is the perfect was to learn about it. My only complaint is that a PDF with some maps and perhaps a list of the key characters would have made this perfect. As it was, Wikipedia proved sufficient to support this deficiency.

Good narrative with a dry sense of humor

The paradoxes are interesting. There is a bit of sarcasm evident as well.

A nitpick - There’s quite a bit of usage of ‘Asia’ and ‘Europe’ without and explanation that in 3000BC, it meant different things in terms of land mass. Neither the Persians nor Greeks had much visibility in to things beyond Mediterranean Sea.

Everytbing thanks to Marathon

The thesis of tying back the liberty of the West to Marathon was neat. The narrations about how often the Greeks squabbled, inter polis, and intra polis, was interesting in that it painted the squabbles as somewhat inherent in democracies. The book did well to highlight the struggle of liberty, fraternity, and equality, with each equally weighted, as going back to the "origins of the West."

Excellent account of the Persian wars.

I felt as if I was living during the times of Cyrus the Great and the Persian wars. Character development and explanation of the times is great.

Greek Fire

Not to much about Persia. Greek Fire might be a better title.

More like Persians war on Greece, exciting read

I found this easy to listen to. And follow. really nota good title since it focuses and the famous battles when Persia invaded Greece. I found the battle descriptions exciting, of course Greece prevailed against all odds which made it interesting to begin with. You get history of Sparta, and Athens as well as xerxes an Persia at the time. Good book.

Hard on a novice.

Excellent for someone already well versed in ancient history. While details of battle were exciting and gave believable character to heroes, traitors and opportunists, descriptions of life (other than death) lacked depth and empathy. I presume a dearth of actual history made for shallow accounts of the in between tines, while much glory (and detail) was heaped on the fights. The first half of the book was more even, while the later half had intricate tales of the action, but seemed to leave out everyday life. Yes, I enjoyed the book, but as a newly interested history reader (as are many Audible customers, I'll presume), I could have used more posting of dates and especially tips on locations. A map and timeline could be added without a rewrite and would be immense boons.

PURE BRILLIANCE

I read a lot. I listen to a lot of audio books. Persian Fire is the most fascinating, well written, and thorough document of such a mysterious and mythologized bygone era.
Bravo!
Audio book: A+
Narration: A+
Very well worth a credit or the sacrifice of several rounds at your local pub.

Historical Fire

Persian Fire provides just enough caveats to keep it honest, but spends most of its time galloping through its narrative. This is not a dry scholarly exercise. Holland has studied the varied, at times incomplete, at times contradictory sources and synthesized them into one unified, energetic and opinionated version of the story. Fun, informative, at times very funny, at times inspirational; I loved this book. It not only tells the story of the Persian War itself, but of the histories of the 3 major players, Persia, Sparta and Athens. If you're looking for every historical controversy exhaustively documented, look elsewhere. Whole books could probably be written on the accuracy of assertions Holland slips in as snarky side comments. But by not getting lost in such minutiae, Holland's narrative conveys the humanity of its protagonists. At the end, we feel like we have learned about the lives and exploits of real people we can relate to and not just names and dates. I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in this time period or history in general.