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Cleopatra: Last Queen Of Egypt (2008)

by Joyce A. Tyldesley(Favorite Author)

3.74 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0465009409 (ISBN13: 9780465009404)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Basic Books

review 1: This was an excellent and balanced bio on the most famous Queen of Egypt, long an obsession of mine. I tend not to read older bios of Cleopatra as the source material on her is fragmented and often not well researched as well as the influence film and popular culture has on her life. This book cleared many of those cobwebs away. Extremely well researched, it shows perceptions of the Queen from both her own time and more timely material. A nice selection of photos and a great job at establishing her familial history. The book does not try to make her into an icon of beauty or a perfect and kind person--but shows her to be flawed but brilliant, manipulative but loving and above all, brave. It also spends an entire chapter on her children which is rare--so often I find ... morein bios of Cleopatra that her children are just ignored and that has been frustrating. Here, their lives and deaths are fleshed out and explained. I think the book walks a nice line between being scholarly and more accessible than many books on subjects in antiquity. Very much enjoyed this.
review 2: A little hard to follow at first because the author provides so much source material and then gives you what the most probable history was. It's not a brass tacks bio but how could it be-egyptology being such an inexact science. Once you get used to this approach, however, the book reads well and avoids being dry or text bookish. Gives the reader a well thought out portait of the players, the environment and, perhaps most interestingly, the Cleopatra mystique - why this historical personage has been lionized/demonized through the ages. less

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