Books by Philip Freeman

An authoritative modern portrait of Ireland's patron saint discusses his youth as a Roman citizen and Christian nobleman, his enslavement by Irish pirates, his decision to convert the Irish to Christianity, and the letters that revealed intimate information about his belief system and life in Ireland. 50,000 first printing.

Copies

No copies available.

The Philosopher and the Druids: A Journey Among the Ancient Celts

There was no reason for the Greek world to be particularly concerned about the Celts in the years before and even decades after Alexander the Great. To any Greek, the Celts were just another race of distant barbarians. Traders might bring back stories of them, and occasionally a small group of Celtic warriors might appear among the mercenaries of a hired army, but they were no threat to civilized Greek folk going about their daily business.

Sometime during his early years in Rhodes, a daring notion first entered the mind of Posidonius. He had been taught by his Stoic professors that the world and all its people were part of a divine order. What better way to understand this order than a great journey of exploration? He knew that tribes still relatively uncorrupted by civilizing influences would be an important part of such a study. To be sure, this grand excursion would be the perfect opportunity to explore other subjects- astronomy, geology, and oceanography just to name a few- as well, but it was unspoiled human culture he most wanted to examine...The best possibility lay in the last place any reasonable Greek philosopher would want to go. In the distant west, beyond even the rule of Rome, lay the unknown land of the Celts.

Copies

No copies available.

Celtic Mythology: Tales of Gods, Goddesses, and Heroes

Most people have heard of the Celts--the elusive, ancient tribal people who resided in present-day England, Ireland, Scotland and France. Paradoxically characterized as both barbaric and innocent, the Celts appeal to the modern world as a symbol of a bygone era, a world destroyed by the ambition of empire and the spread of Christianity throughout Western Europe. Despite the pervasive cultural and literary influence of the Celts, shockingly little is known of their way of life and beliefs, because very few records of their stories exist. In this book, for the first time, Philip Freeman brings together the best stories of Celtic mythology.

Everyone today knows about the gods and heroes of the ancient Greeks, such as Zeus, Hera, and Hercules, but how many people have heard of the Gaulish god Lugus or the magical Welsh queen Rhiannon or the great Irish warrior Cú Chulainn? We still thrill to the story of the Trojan War, but the epic battles of the Irish Táin Bó Cuailgne are known only to a few. And yet those who have read the stories of Celtic myth and legend-among them writers like J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis-have been deeply moved and influenced by these amazing tales, for there is nothing in the world quite like them. In these stories a mysterious and invisible realm of gods and spirits exists alongside and sometimes crosses over into our own human world; fierce women warriors battle with kings and heroes, and even the rules of time and space can be suspended. Captured in vivid prose these shadowy figures-gods, goddesses, and heroes-come to life for the modern reader.

Copies

$27.99

Details

Julian: Rome’s Last Pagan Emperor (Ancient Lives)

The tragic life of Julian, the last non-Christian emperor of Rome, by award-winning author Philip Freeman

“When we think of ancient Rome, it’s impossible not to think of Christianity, one of its most notable exports—but what if it hadn’t been? This is the question provoked by classicist Philip Freeman in Julian, an appealing new entry in Yale’s Ancient Lives series, which tells the story of the old faith’s last imperial torchbearer.”—Anna Heyward, New York Times Book Review

Flavius Claudius Julianus, or Julian the Apostate, ruled Rome as sole emperor for just a year and a half, from 361 to 363, but during that time he turned the world upside down. Although a nephew of Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor of Rome, Julian fought to return Rome to the old gods who had led his ancestors to build their vast empire.

As emperor, Julian set about reforming the administration, conquering new territories, and reviving ancient religions. He was scorned in his time for repudiating Christianity and demonized as an apostate for willfully rejecting Christ. Through the centuries, Julian has been viewed by many as a tragic figure who sought to save Rome from its enemies and the corrupting influence of Christianity. Christian writers and historians have seen Julian much differently: as a traitor to God and violent oppressor of Christians. Had Julian not been killed by a random Persian spear, he might well have changed all of history.

Copies

$26.00

Details

The World of Saint Patrick

The legend of Saint Patrick is irresistibly captivating-he drove the snakes out of Ireland, battled the druids, and used the three-leaf Shamrock to convert the pagan Irish to belief in the Christian Trinity. Yet, as so often happens, these stories are mere myths that fold under closer scrutiny. Snakes never plagued the Irish countryside, and the Emerald Isle's most beloved saint wasn't even Irish but a Briton of the Roman nobility. Fortunately, the truth is even more fascinating.

In The World of Saint Patrick, classical scholar Philip Freeman offers the definitive account of Saint Patrick's life through new and vibrant translations of the greatest works of early Christian Ireland. This story of great violence, brutality, and even greater faith begins with two letters Patrick wrote describing his kidnapping by pirates at age sixteen and subsequent slavery. Although his grandfather was a priest and his father a deacon, at the time of his kidnapping Patrick had rejected his childhood faith in favor of atheism. Yet in this deeply moving narrative, Patrick recounts how he regained his faith during his captivity, and how the voice of God guided him both in his escape from bondage and in his eventual return to Ireland as a missionary to the very people who had enslaved him.

The World of Saint Patrick delves into colorful tales of Patrick's struggles with pagan kings, soaring hymns of praise, and a prayer of protection against forces of evil such as "the magic of women, blacksmiths, and druids." Freeman also examines the life of Saint Brigid, Ireland's first female saint, and the legendary voyage of Saint Brendan and his monks across the western ocean.

Both general readers with an interest in Ireland's saints and scholars studying religion or medieval history will be unable to put down this captivating tale of Ireland's greatest saint and the remarkable times in which he lived.

Copies

No copies available.

Searching for Sappho: The Lost Songs and World of the First Woman Poet

An exploration of the fascinating poetry, life, and world of Sappho, including a complete translation of all her poems.
For more than twenty-five centuries, all that the world knew of the poems of Sappho―the first woman writer in literary history―were a few brief quotations preserved by ancient male authors. Yet those meager remains showed such power and genius that they captured the imagination of readers through the ages. But within the last century, dozens of new pieces of her poetry have been found written on crumbling papyrus or carved on broken pottery buried in the sands of Egypt. As recently as 2014, yet another discovery of a missing poem created a media stir around the world.
The poems of Sappho reveal a remarkable woman who lived on the Greek island of Lesbos during the vibrant age of the birth of western science, art, and philosophy. Sappho was the daughter of an aristocratic family, a wife, a devoted mother, a lover of women, and one of the greatest writers of her own or any age. Nonetheless, although most people have heard of Sappho, the story of her lost poems and the lives of the ancient women they celebrate has never been told for a general audience.
Searching for Sappho is the exciting tale of the rediscovery of Sappho’s poetry and of the woman and world they reveal. 14 illustrations

Copies

No copies available.

Searching for Sappho: The Lost Songs and World of the First Woman Poet

An exploration of the fascinating poetry, life, and world of Sappho, including a complete translation of all her poems.
For more than twenty-five centuries, all that the world knew of the poems of Sappho―the first woman writer in literary history―were a few brief quotations preserved by ancient male authors. Yet those meager remains showed such power and genius that they captured the imagination of readers through the ages. But within the last century, dozens of new pieces of her poetry have been found written on crumbling papyrus or carved on broken pottery buried in the sands of Egypt. As recently as 2014, yet another discovery of a missing poem created a media stir around the world.
The poems of Sappho reveal a remarkable woman who lived on the Greek island of Lesbos during the vibrant age of the birth of western science, art, and philosophy. Sappho was the daughter of an aristocratic family, a wife, a devoted mother, a lover of women, and one of the greatest writers of her own or any age. Nonetheless, although most people have heard of Sappho, the story of her lost poems and the lives of the ancient women they celebrate has never been told for a general audience.
Searching for Sappho is the exciting tale of the rediscovery of Sappho’s poetry and of the woman and world they reveal. 14 illustrations

Copies

No copies available.

Julius Caesar

The acclaimed Pelican Shakespeare series edited by A. R. Braunmuller and Stephen Orgel

The legendary Pelican Shakespeare series features authoritative and meticulously researched texts paired with scholarship by renowned Shakespeareans. Each book includes an essay on the theatrical world of Shakespeare’s time, an introduction to the individual play, and a detailed note on the text used. Updated by general editors Stephen Orgel and A. R. Braunmuller, these easy-to-read editions incorporate over thirty years of Shakespeare scholarship undertaken since the original series, edited by Alfred Harbage, appeared between 1956 and 1967. With definitive texts and illuminating essays, the Pelican Shakespeare will remain a valued resource for students, teachers, and theater professionals for many years to come.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Copies

No copies available.

Julius Caesar

An authoritative portrait of the iconic leader from ancient Rome evaluates him as a military strategist and ambitious conqueror, providing additional coverage of his lesser-known contributions as a priest, family man, and advocate for the working class. 25,000 first printing.

Copies

No copies available.

Julius Caesar

A fascinating, comprehensive biography of the cunning Roman conqueror Julius Caesar.

More than two thousand years after his death, Julius Caesar remains one of the great figures of history. He shaped Rome for generations, and his name became a synonym for “emperor”—not only in Rome but as far away as Germany and Russia. He is best known as the general who defeated the Gauls and doubled the size of Rome’s territories. But, as Philip Freeman describes in this fascinating new biography, Caesar was also a brilliant orator, an accomplished writer, a skilled politician, and much more.

Julius Caesar was a complex man, both hero and villain. He possessed great courage, ambition, honor, and vanity. Born into a noble family that had long been in decline, he advanced his career cunningly, beginning as a priest and eventually becoming Rome’s leading general. He made alliances with his rivals and then discarded them when it suited him. He was a spokesman for the ordinary people of Rome, who rallied around him time and again, but he profited enormously from his conquests and lived opulently. Eventually he was murdered in one of the most famous assassinations in history.

Caesar’s contemporaries included some of Rome’s most famous figures, from the generals Marius, Sulla, and Pompey to the orator and legislator Cicero as well as the young politicians Mark Antony and Octavius (later Caesar Augustus). Caesar’s legendary romance with the Egyptian queen Cleopatra still fascinates us today.

In this splendid biography, Freeman presents Caesar in all his dimensions and contradictions. With remarkable clarity and brevity, Freeman shows how Caesar dominated a newly powerful Rome and shaped its destiny. This book will captivate readers discovering Caesar and ancient Rome for the first time as well as those who have a deep interest in the classical world.

Copies

No copies available.

Julius Caesar

“It must be by his death.”
—Julius Caesar

Eminent Shakespearean scholars Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen provide a fresh new edition of this masterpiece of political power play and manipulation—along with more than a hundred pages of exclusive features, including:

• an original Introduction to Julius Caesar
• incisive scene-by-scene synopsis and analysis with vital facts about the work
• commentary on past and current productions based on interviews with leading directors, actors, and designers
• photographs of key RSC productions
• an overview of Shakespeare’s theatrical career and chronology of his plays

Ideal for students, theater professionals, and general readers, these modern and accessible editions from the Royal Shakespeare Company set a new standard in Shakespearean literature for the twenty-first century.

Copies

No copies available.

Julius Caesar

The authoritative edition of Julius Caesar from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers.

Shakespeare may have written Julius Caesar as the first of his plays to be performed at the Globe, in 1599. For it, he turned to a key event in Roman history: Caesar’s death at the hands of friends and fellow politicians. Renaissance writers disagreed over the assassination, seeing Brutus, a leading conspirator, as either hero or villain. Shakespeare’s play keeps this debate alive.

This edition includes:
-Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play
-Newly revised explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play
-Scene-by-scene plot summaries
-A key to the play’s famous lines and phrases
-An introduction to reading Shakespeare’s language
-An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play
-Fresh images from the Folger Shakespeare Library’s vast holdings of rare books
-An up-to-date annotated guide to further reading

Essay by Coppélia Kahn

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world’s largest collection of Shakespeare’s printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit Folger.edu.

Copies

No copies available.

Running the Voodoo Down: The Electric Music of Miles Davis

This book reassesses Miles Davis' “electric period” and analyzes its continuing influence on contemporary music. While jazz purists often revile this phase – which encompasses the entire second half of his career, from 1967 until his death in 1991 – this book takes a new, appreciative look at this music and shows its importance to Davis' career and to jazz as a whole. The author also reveals surprising connections between Davis, Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone, particularly the ways they fed each other's creativity. This book will stir up the longtime debate about this important music and give Davis' legions of fans refreshing insights into his work.

Copies

No copies available.

Alexander the Great

Tough, resolute, fearless. Alexander was a born warrior and a ruler of passionate ambition who understood the intense adventure of conquest and of the unknown. When he died in 323 B.C.E. at age thirty-two, his vast empire comprised more than two million square miles, spanning from Greece to India. His achievements were unparalleled—he had excelled as leader to his men, founded eighteen new cities, and stamped the face of Greek culture on the ancient East. the myth he created is as potent today as it was in the ancient world.
Robin Lane Fox's superb account searches through the mass of conflicting evidence and legend to focus on Alexander as a man of his own time. Combining historical scholarship and acute psychological insight, it brings this colossal figure vividly to life.

Copies

No copies available.

Alexander the Great

The definitive biography of the towering hero of the classical world: a fearless general, the conqueror of the Persians, and the visionary ruler of a vast empire—from one of the world's foremost scholars of ancient Greece.

“An amazingly solid, balanced, and evocative view of the man.” —The Washington Post Book World

Paul Cartledge gives us the most accessible, reliable, and intimate portrait of Alexander III of Macedon, the man himself, brilliantly evoking his remarkable political and military accomplishments, cutting through the myths to show why he was such a great leader.

He explores our endless obsession with Alexander and gives us insight into both his capacity for brutality and his sensitive grasp of international politics. As he brings Alexander vividly to life, Cartledge also captures his enduring impact on world history and culture.

Copies

No copies available.

Alexander the Great

Freeman, Philip

Copies

No copies available.

Alexander the Great

In the first authoritative biography of Alexander the Great written for a general audience in a generation, classicist and historian Philip Freeman tells the remarkable life of the great conqueror.

The celebrated Macedonian king has been one of the most enduring figures in history. He was a general of such skill and renown that for two thousand years other great leaders studied his strategy and tactics, from Hannibal to Napoleon, with countless more in between. He flashed across the sky of history like a comet, glowing brightly and burning out quickly: crowned at age nineteen, dead by thirty-two. He established the greatest empire of the ancient world; Greek coins and statues are found as far east as Afghanistan. Our interest in him has never faded.

Alexander was born into the royal family of Macedonia, the kingdom that would soon rule over Greece. Tutored as a boy by Aristotle, Alexander had an inquisitive mind that would serve him well when he faced formidable obstacles during his military campaigns. Shortly after taking command of the army, he launched an invasion of the Persian empire, and continued his conquests as far south as the deserts of Egypt and as far east as the mountains of present-day Pakistan and the plains of India. Alexander spent nearly all his adult life away from his homeland, and he and his men helped spread the Greek language throughout western Asia, where it would become the lingua franca of the ancient world. Within a short time after Alexander’s death in Baghdad, his empire began to fracture. Best known among his successors are the Ptolemies of Egypt, whose empire lasted until Cleopatra.

In his lively and authoritative biography of Alexander, classical scholar and historian Philip Freeman describes Alexander’s astonishing achievements and provides insight into the mercurial character of the great conqueror. Alexander could be petty and magnanimous, cruel and merciful, impulsive and farsighted. Above all, he was ferociously, intensely competitive and could not tolerate losing—which he rarely did. As Freeman explains, without Alexander, the influence of Greece on the ancient world would surely not have been as great as it was, even if his motivation was not to spread Greek culture for beneficial purposes but instead to unify his empire. Only a handful of people have influenced history as Alexander did, which is why he continues to fascinate us.

Copies

No copies available.

Heroes of Olympus

Accessible, fast-paced retellings of the most important classical Greek and Roman myths, adapted for middle graders.

Ancient myths continue to have modern relevance—for thousands of years they have been the basis for plays, operas, paintings, and movies. And in these retellings from acclaimed writer and scholar Philip Freeman, classic tales from Greek and Roman mythology find new life and inspire aspiring writers, artists, and musicians. Adapted from the lengthier Oh My Gods and specially tailored to a younger audience, these irresistible stories of philandering gods, flawed heroes, and tragic lovers portray the fundamental aspects of humanity and are filled with entertaining drama and valuable insights. Sixty dramatic illustrations enliven the book.

Copies

No copies available.

Oh My Gods: A Modern Retelling of Greek and Roman Myths

From acclaimed writer and scholar Philip Freeman, a contemporary retelling of classic Greek and Roman mythology.

The Greek and Roman myths have never died out; in fact they are as relevant today as ever in their sharp observations about human nature. For thousands of years they have inspired plays, operas, and paintings; today they live on in movies and video games.

Oh My Gods is a contemporary retelling of some of the most popular myths by Philip Freeman, a noted classicist. These tales of errant gods, fantastic creatures, and human heroes are brought to life in fresh and modern versions. Powerful Zeus; his perpetually aggrieved wife, Hera; talented Apollo; beautiful Aphrodite; fierce Athena; the dauntless heroes Theseus and Hercules; and the doomed lovers Orpheus and Eurydice still inspire awe, give us courage, and break our hearts.

From the astonishing tales of the Argonauts to the immortal narrative of the Battle of Troy, these ancient tales have inspired writers from Shakespeare to J. K. Rowling. In Philip Freeman’s vibrant retelling they will doubtless inspire a new generation of readers.

Copies

No copies available.

Lecture Notes: A Professor's Inside Guide to College Success