Tom Holland's bestselling account of the world's very first clash of civilisations between the Persians and the Greeks in 480BC

Magisterial... told with great authority and a novelistic colour and verve

Books of the Year, Independent

Holland has a rare eye for detail, drama and the telling anecdote

Dominic Sandbrook, Daily Telegraph

An unequivocal argument for the relevance of ancient history

Observer

Holland brings this tumultuous, epoch-making period dazzlingly to life

William Napier, Independent on Sunday

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 most powerful man on the planet is as heart-stopping as any episode in history.