De beslissende rivaliteit van het klassieke Griekenland, Athene en Sparta, verteld door meesterhistoricus Adrian Goldsworthy.

Two great cities. One fierce rivalry. Countless untold stories.

Athens and Sparta were the two big players in Ancient Greece. United, they helped lead the Greeks in defeating the great Persian invasion. Divided, they spread conflict and destruction throughout the eastern Mediterranean. They were not simply rivals for power, but polar opposites in culture and ideology: Athens was the outward looking, radical democracy with a maritime empire whilst Sparta was militaristic, rigidly disciplined and brutal. Both were experiments in how to run a state, epitomising the extremes of the Greek longing to excel.

This is a story of politics and war, but also of culture. In Athens, philosophers dissected the physical and moral world, writers spun forth comedy and drama, and new ideas filled the city. Athens could be vulgar and cruel, but no other state has ever allowed thousands of citizens to debate its laws freely. Sparta was innovative in other ways, with a society divided into strict class groups and an astonishing focus on military training. Both cities were paradoxes – they were at once remarkably ordered and surprisingly prone to savagery.

Athens and Sparta tells a remarkable story of the drama and extremity of human behaviour. It draws on ancient sources and modern discoveries and boasts a wide-ranging cast of characters – statesmen, lawgivers, rabble-rousers, philosophers, artists, courtesans, wives and heroes. The history of these cities truly is a microcosm of the human experience, in all its wonder and horror.

The real history behind Christopher Nolan's Odyssey.

Two great cities. One fierce rivalry. Countless untold stories.

Athens and Sparta were the two big players in Ancient Greece. United, they helped lead the Greeks in defeating the great Persian invasion. Divided, they spread conflict and destruction throughout the eastern Mediterranean. They were not simply rivals for power, but polar opposites in culture and ideology: Athens was the outward looking, radical democracy with a maritime empire whilst Sparta was militaristic, rigidly disciplined and brutal. Both were experiments in how to run a state, epitomising the extremes of the Greek longing to excel.

This is a story of politics and war, but also of culture. In Athens, philosophers dissected the physical and moral world, writers spun forth comedy and drama, and new ideas filled the city. Athens could be vulgar and cruel, but no other state has ever allowed thousands of citizens to debate its laws freely. Sparta was innovative in other ways, with a society divided into strict class groups and an astonishing focus on military training. Both cities were paradoxes – they were at once remarkably ordered and surprisingly prone to savagery.


Athens and Sparta tells a remarkable story of the drama and extremity of human behaviour. It draws on ancient sources and modern discoveries and boasts a wide-ranging cast of characters – statesmen, lawgivers, rabble-rousers, philosophers, artists, courtesans, wives and heroes. The history of these cities truly is a microcosm of the human experience, in all its wonder and horror.

'I have never read a book on Mesopotamia that so beautifully brings to life the people themselves ... It melts away the sense of time.'
TOM HOLLAND

'Tender, moving and vivid.'
ROBERT MACFARLANE

'Beautiful'
STEPHEN GREENBLATT

'Fascinating and magnificent, beautifully written and explained: this book is a masterpiece.'
GEORGE MONBIOT

'Ancient Mesopotamia comes alive in Moudhy Al-Rashid's must-read, millennia-spanning history ... spellbinding'
NEW SCIENTIST

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Thousands of years ago, in a part of the world we now call ancient Mesopotamia, people began writing things down for the very first time.

What they left behind, in a vast region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, preserves leaps in human ingenuity, like the earliest depiction of a wheel and the first approximation of pi. But they also capture breathtakingly intimate, raw and relatable moments, like a dog's paw prints as it accidentally stepped into fresh clay, or the imprint of a child's teeth.

In Between Two Rivers, historian Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid reveals what these ancient people chose to record about their lives, allowing us to brush hands with them millennia later. We find a lullaby to soothe a baby, instructions for exorcising a ghost, countless receipts for beer, and the adorable, messy writing of preschoolers. We meet an enslaved person negotiating their freedom, an astronomer tracing the movement of the planets, a princess who may have created the world's first museum, and a working mother struggling with 'the juggle' in 1900 BCE.

Together, these fragments illuminate not just the history of Mesopotamia, but the story of how history was made.

Witness the rise and fall of ancient empires and forgotten cultures, and their epic stories with this unique map-led history.

From Mesopotamia’s thriving trade hubs to the spectacular cities of the Inca, such as Machu Picchu, Civilizations Map By Map charts the rise and fall of more than 90 pioneering early societies. A combination of specially commissioned story-telling maps and contemporary examples offer a window into the pivotal events, key innovations, cultural cornerstones, and enduring legacies of these ancient worlds.

Travel through 6,000 years of history – from the first recorded war between Elam and Sumer, through Alexander the Great’s conquests across three continents, to the rapid expansion of the Aztec Empire. Discover the birth of writing, the calendar, coinage, and urban planning, along with the spread of early scientific knowledge, and religious, philosophical, and political ideas. Marvel at colossal Olmec stone heads, exquisite Byzantine mosaics and Song dynasty silk, the spectacular Great Mosque of Djenné in Mali, and many more artistic and architectural triumphs.

Written and authenticated by a panel of expert historians, Civilizations Map By Map uncovers the incredible stories of our shared past, one map at a time.

Historicus Dick Harrison portretteert de legendarische koningin van Egypte in ‘Cleopatra’.