The companion guide to the Greek islands

Travel

BRADFORD, ERNLE

Europe

Collins

Cleopatra

Cleopatra was an intellectual, an astute politician, and a powerful Queen of Egypt, but most people remember her primarily as a seductress. In this illuminating biography, Ernle Bradford suggests that Cleopatra's prurient reputation was likely manufactured by the conquering Romans to discredit her name after her death. Cleopatra's whole life was devoted to Egypt. Even though she was probably Greek, not Egyptian, by birth, she was the first of her dynasty to learn the language of the country over which she ruled. Only seventeen years old when she came to the throne in 51 B.C., she watched the savage struggle then raging between Caesar and Pompey and hoped that Rome would destroy itself in the process. Bradford's detailed exploration of the powers of this legendary queen is captivating and illuminating.

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Penguin??Books

The order of the Knights Hospitaller of St. John of Jerusalem is the most long-lived of the great military orders of knighthood. Originating in a hospice on the road to Jerusalem and officially founded in 1099 during the First Crusade, the Knights of St. John continued to grow in wealth, power, and territory long after they were run out of Jerusalem by victorious Muslim forces. In The Shield and the Sword, Ernle Bradford displays his talents as a master storyteller and great scholar of the Mediterranean, charting the intriguing history of the Knights-from their origins in the Holy Land to their subsequent relocations to Rhodes, the island of Malta, and eventually England.

The Shield and the Sword

History

Military

Mediterranean: portrait of a sea

Harcourt, Brace. Jovanovich

The story of the stoically heroic people of the George Cross island holding out despite starvation, disease and ceaseless air raids during the Second World War.

Siege: Malta, 1940-43

Literature & Fiction

Hamish Hamilton Ltd.

The Journeying Moon

Grafton Books

The bestselling author of The Journeying Moon explores the history and culture of Sicily in this colorful travel memoir. In his memoir The Journeying Moon, historian Ernle Bradford recounts the call to adventure that brought him and his wife, Janet, to a life on the sea. Continuing their adventures aboard the Mother Goose, Bradford and Janet now voyage around the island of Sicily, where the couple explores the land and learns its captivating history.   Home to ancient temple ruins, charming villages, and Mount Etna, the largest active volcano in Europe, Sicily provides the perfect backdrop for this tale of exploration and wonder. In a model travel narrative, Bradford captures the sights, sounds, and flavors of Sicily in his lively portrayal of an excursion across an ancient and extraordinary island, a part of Italy and yet a world unto itself.

The Wind Off the Island

UNKNO

Since ships first set sail in the Mediterranean, The Rock has been the gate of Fortress Europe. In ancient times, it was known as one of the Pillars of Hercules, and a glance at its formidable mass suggests that it may well have been created by the gods. Sought after by every nation with territorial ambitions in Europe, Asia, and Africa, Gibraltar was possessed by the Arabs, the Spanish, and ultimately the British, who captured it in the early 1700s and held onto it in a siege of more than three years late in the eighteenth century. The fact that that was one of more than a dozen sieges exemplifies Gibraltar’s quintessential value as a prize and the desperation of governments to fly their flag above its forbidding ramparts. Bradford uses his matchless skill and knowledge to take the reader through the history of this great and unique fortress. From its geological creation to its two-thousand-year influence on politics and war, he crafts the compelling tale of how these few square miles played a major part in history.

Gibraltar: the history of a fortress

Hart-Davis

The three-day battle for the pass at Thermopylæ—the Hot Gates—was a critical contest in Xerxes's massive invasion of Greece. The bloody stand made there by Leonidas and his small Spartan army in 480 B.C. has been hailed ever since as an outstanding example of patriotism, courage, and sacrifice. The ambitions of King Xerxes were vast. Having amassed a Persian army that was the largest force of men and ships ever assembled, he set out to conquer Greece, at the same time sending an army of Carthaginians to overrun Sicily. Thus the two forces planned to open the gates to the wealth of the western Mediterranean and march upon most of the known world.Ernle Bradford's narrative embraces the entire era of the invasion, from the building of the incredible wooden bridge across the Hellespont to the final crushing defeat of the Persian rear guard at the battle of Platæa. There, as before, the Spartans were the decisive force, turning out in massive numbers. It was at Thermopylæ, however, that the fate of Xerxes's forces was determined by a small band of Spartans. In Thermopylæ, Ernle Bradford brings to life the personalities and fantastic battles of this epic period with unmatched skill and verve.

Thermopylae: The Battle for the West

Da Capo Press

DRAKE

World

Hodder&Stoughton

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Books by BRADFORD, ERNLE