From the author of ‘The Pike’ — winner of the 2013 Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction — a compelling story of heroism told through eight famous lives that span from Achilles to Sir Francis Drake.
Beginning beneath the walls of Troy, ending in 1930s Europe, ‘Heroes’ is a compelling evocation of heroism through eight famous lives — Achilles, Odysseus, Alcibiades, Cato, El Cid, Francis Drake, Wallenstein and Garibaldi.
Not necessarily all good — sometimes quite the reverse — but all great, they possessed a charisma, a strength of will powerful enough to persuade those around them that they alone could do the incredible and unprecedented.
It is a story of morality and dictatorship; money and sorcery; seduction and mass hysteria.
