Tides of War

Rating:
Summary: Huge Historical portrayal
Review: No one (even inside a university) must know Fifth Century Athens the way Mr. Pressfield does. He brings us into the frame with elegant language reminiscent of the time. Interesting characters, vivid warfare and a compelling saga.

Mr. Pressfield is fearless in staging this literary feast. I know of no other author who leads such a passionate charge into ancient history. Where was he when I was trying to grasp history in school. Bravo. Job well done.

Rating:
Summary: Another fantastic winner by Steven Pressfield
Review: Steven Pressfield has again managed to bring flesh and blood to those we read about in our classic studies. This effort is every bit as fascinating as "Gates of Fire" and the research put forth it creating this novel is evident in every page. I purchased this book today and finished it in a day. It left me wanting for more.

Rating:
Summary: Less than I'd hoped for
Review: Alcibiades is a less than admirable historical figure for me, and because of that the Peloponnesian War, its means and consequences, and its eventual outcome, is difficult for me to be particularly interested in. If someone could pull it off, I thought, surely the author of the masterful Gates of Fire could do so. Alas, even Pressfield faltered somewhat. His battlefield and nautical fights were done well, but characterizations and intrigue were weak. I found few characters to really sympathize with, and my attention wandered off so many times and I spent so much time wishing that it would hurry up and "get better," that I wouldn't recommend it to most people.

However, if you are interested in ancient Greece, find an opportunist like Alcibiades an interesting figure to study, and don't mind tragedy without much heroism, you may like Tides of War. To be fair, in retrospect I wasn't sorry I read it; there were some parts that I really enjoyed. You may want to prepare yourself by familiarizing yourself with some of the main details of the Peloponnesian War, as Tides of War skims over much of it. Further, to Pressfield's credit, the novelization of a near-thirty year long war with such intricate complications is truly difficult, and he makes a bold attempt.

Perhaps he shouldn't have tried, or perhaps he should have narrowed his scope to a traditional novel structure: exposition, conflict, rising action, climax, resolution. Nevertheless, I give this book 3 stars, as Pressfield does as good a job as anyone out there could. I just wish he hadn't tried - and I wish I hadn't read it with the hope that it could be anywhere as good as Gates of Fire.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Fictional Account of Alcibiades
Review: A great novel on the war between Athens and Sparta and Athens' disastrous campaign against Syracuse. Pressfield's choice of words and grammar captures the reader and creates the proper mood for the narrative. Again, the voice is made credible by using a double narrative technique in which one legitimizes the other.

One can't really compare this work to "Gates of Fire" as the story covers very different events and greater time periods. The objectives of the characters are multi-faceted and change frequently throughout the story. Instead of the "us vs. them" theme in "Gates of Fire" the parties in this story are all equally unscrupulous as to their motives and methods. Pressfield overcomes this dilemma by good character development: he focuses a lot on describing what lies behind their motivations and so gives legitimacy to their actions to which the reader can relate. As in "Gates of Fire" Pressfield's main narrator is the voice of a common man who is rough and tough who has nothing to lose: this makes the character a little more approachable from the modern perspective.

Overall, a great book. Pressfield has truly revived the form of the classical epic with this work.



Rating:
Summary: The lesser horse in the Pressfield stable
Review: "Tides of War" is just not up to par with the other offerings from Steven Pressfield. What Pressfield does wonderfully in "Gates of Fire" and competently in "Virtues of War" is give you characters you care about and tell a tale of historical fiction through their eyes and experiences.

Pressfield misses the mark in two ways here, first giving us characters with whom we cannot identify, and then failing to effective tell the story in the voice of the characters.

You should skip this one, but don't let that dissuade you from running, not walking, to "Gates of Fire" and then jogging to "Virtues of War."

Rating:
Summary: The Rise and Fall of Imperial Athens most cunning leader
Review: This is an excellent read regarding the Hellenic Peloponessian Wars. I really enjoyed how masterfully the anti-hero Alciabides is described throughout the whole book. This book is about how the Athenian demos' (and their elected leaders') lust for imperialism brought about the wonderful expansion of Western Civilization, but also the fall of Athens. I could not put Gates of Fire down, but this book took me much longer to read. In the end, I'm glad I put it down since I was then able to contemporaneously read about the Pelopenisian Wars through Thucyclides fine read. Alciabides is truly one of the most fascinating figures of Antiquity and Pressfield masterfully injects him throughout this story. This book's fictional characterization of his rise and fall, as seen through the eyes of Alciabides good pal, is brilliant. I do not compare this book to Gates of Fire since this book does not deal so much with courage (even though Alciabides was a courgageously cunning Athenian military genius, who was trained in Sparta in post-Thermopylae Greece). This book is about a time period, and partially covers one person's odyssey throught this fascinating yet violent time. Alciabides perhaps personifies how the Ancient Greek city states were able to create and spread Western civilization to a point where even now, we remember them. No better figure in Antiuity (before Alexander the Great), was a better representative of the greatness and deplorability of Imperial Athens and of the Ancient Greeks, than Alciabides. This book is truly Pressfield's finest fictional literary work (to date) due to the true depth covered of the crucial figures of the Peloponesian Wars. I was impressed

Rating:
Summary: Ancient history with great relevance to our own time.
Review: The main problem I had with this book was the narrator's point of view. Instead of using Alcibiades as the narrator and thus focusing the action on him, the author uses a mercenary soldier who eventually kills the most charismatic character in the book. Pressfield is not the only author guilty of this sin. Michael Curtis Ford used a minor soldier as narrator of the great exodus of Xenophon in his book, "The Ten Thousand".
Nonetheless the book is worth reading for its rich language and deep understanding of ancient Greek politics and warfare.

Rating:
Summary: Poor 2nd attempt after Gates of Fire
Review: I admit that it's unfair to expect another Gates of Fire -- but I enjoyed that wonderful book so much that I had high hopes for the story of Alcibiades. In fact I couldn't even finish it... rambling, confused and, well, not engaging. I will try another Pressfield book to see which of these efforts represents the real author. If only I could read Gates of Fire for the first time again...

Rating:
Summary: Captivating Tale of one of History's Great Characters
Review: Alcibiades, the main character in Steven Pressfield's "Tides of War," is a surprisingly neglected historical figure. Thanks to Pressfield, the thrilling tales of Alcibiades' exploits will be known to a much wider audience.

Alcibiades was the first man in Athens, earning both the adoration of the people and the hatred of other ambitious men. Pressfield captures the essence of Alcibiades' leadership ability -- his few flaws (such as a lisp) make him even more admirable -- and the essence of the hatred he generated among his fellow Athenians. This duality allows Alcibiades to convince Athens to pursue the doomed Sicilian expedition yet allows his foes to arrest him and deny him the right to lead the expedition.

Alcibiades had a mercenary streak a mile wide, and soon Alcibiades is leading the hated Spartans against his former countrymen. Proving he is no mere Benedict Arnold, Alcibiades seduces one of the Spartan queens, and soon he is fleeing for his life from Sparta and ends up in Persia, serving the monarch who wants nothing more than to erase the Greeks from the face of the earth.

Pressfield vividly describes the topsy-turvy Greek world of the Athenian-Spartan conflict, capturing the horrifying details of battle (the harbor battle and the inland battle on Sicily are masterful) and political intrigues with great skill. The madness of war comes home with powerful blows. Pressfield also throws us into the prison-pits of Sicily, as the survivors of the expedition cling to life under the most horrible of circumstances.

While the driving force of the book, Alcibiades does not tell his own story . . . there are two narrators, including the man who ultimately assassinates Alcibiades after he has betrayed not only the Athenians but also the Spartans. The periodic loss of Alcibiades from the narrative is the only thing that keeps the book from gaining its fifth star . . . as riveting as the book is, it would have been more so had Alcibiades told the story himself. (Although, to be fair, Pressfield's decision to have Alcibiades' assassin tell the story gives it a poignancy not soon forgotten, as the assassin was a close friend of Alcibiades' for many years.)

For fans of historical fiction, this book is a must-read. While not technically a sequal to Pressfield's "Gates of Fire," that book takes place earlier in the fifth century and provides a valuable context for this book, and probably should be read first -- although by no means is that required.