Tides of War [Paperback]

Steven Pressfield (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 28, 2001

Brilliant at war, a master of politics, and a charismatic lover, Alcibiades was Athens’ favorite son and the city’s greatest general.

A prodigal follower of Socrates, he embodied both the best and the worst of the Golden Age of Greece. A commander on both land and sea, he led his armies to victory after victory.

But like the heroes in a great Greek tragedy, he was a victim of his own pride, arrogance, excess, and ambition. Accused of crimes against the state, he was banished from his beloved Athens, only to take up arms in the service of his former enemies.

For nearly three decades, Greece burned with war and Alcibiades helped bring victories to both sides — and ended up trusted by neither.

Narrated from death row by Alcibiades’ bodyguard and assassin, a man whose own love and loathing for his former commander mirrors the mixed emotions felt by all Athens, Tides of War tells an epic saga of an extraordinary century, a war that changed history, and a complex leader who seduced a nation.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

After chronicling the Spartan stand at Thermopylae in his audacious Gates of Fire, Steven Pressfield once again proves that it's all Greek to him. In Tides of War, he tells the tale of Athenian soldier extraordinaire Alcibiades. Despite the vaunted claims for Periclean democracy, he is undoubtedly first among equals--a great warrior and an impressive physical specimen to boot: "The beauty of his person easily won over those previously disposed, and disarmed even those who abhorred his character and conduct." He is also a formidable orator, whose stump speeches are paradoxically heightened by what some might consider an impediment:

Even his lisp worked in Alcibiades' favor. It was a flaw; it made him human. It took the curse off his otherwise godlike self-presentation and made one, despite all misgivings, like the fellow.

This tale of arms and the man requires two narrators. One, Jason, is an aging noble who serves as a sort of recording angel of the Athenian golden age. The other, Polymides, was long Alcibiades' right-hand man, yet is now imprisoned for his murder.

As they were in his previous novel, Pressfield's battle scenes are extraordinarily vivid and visceral. This time, however, many of these elemental clashes take place on water. "As far as sight could carry, the sea stood curtained with smoke and paved with warcraft. Immediately left, a battleship had rammed one of the vessels in the wall; all three of her banks were backing water furiously, to extract and ram again, while across the breach screamed storms of stones, darts, and brands of such density that the air appeared solid with steel and flame."

In addition to his gift for rendering patriotic gore, the author excels at quieter but no less deadly forms of combat. As Alcibiades' star rises and falls and rises again, we are escorted directly into the snakepit of Athenian realpolitik. Bathing us in the details of a distant era, Pressfield is largely convincing. But it must be said that his diction exhibits a sometimes comical variegation, sliding from Homeric rhetoric to tough-guy speak to the sort of casual Anglicisms we might expect from Evelyn Waugh's far-from-bright young things. No matter. Tides of War conquers by sheer storytelling prowess, reminding us that war was--and is--a highly addictive version of hell. --Darya Silver --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Perhaps the Peloponnesian War, which lasted 27 years and featured an epic list of people and places, just doesn't lend itself to the six-hour audio format, for not even renowned Shakespearean actor Jacobi's reading gives this novel the sense of personal drama it requires. Pressfield (Gates of Fire) focuses his story on Alcibiades, the legendary hero whose strength, beauty and courage embodied ancient Greek ideals. An Athenian trained in Sparta, Alcibiades appears divinely well suited to feed his country's hunger for military victories. But democracy in its nascent stage being no less tainted than in its current manifestation, Alcibiades is feared for his popularity and ultimately exiled on a trumped-up charge. Once in the camp of Athens's enemies, he proves as unmatchable a foe as he could have been a champion. Unfortunately, the pace of this recording, as necessitated by the breadth of events covered in its relatively short length, lends it all the emotional depth of a textbook. And unless listeners have studied their ancient Greek geography, they will find themselves rewinding often to try to keep up with the movements of all the ships and forces. Simultaneous release with the Doubleday hardcover (Forecasts, Mar. 13). (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; Reprint edition (August 28, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553381393
• ISBN-13: 978-0553381399
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1.2 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (143 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #70,786 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

STEVEN PRESSFIELD is the author of the hugely successful historical novels Gates of Fire, Tides of War, and Last of the Amazons. His debut novel, The Legend of Bagger Vance, was made into a movie starring Matt Damon and Will Smith in 2000. He lives in California.

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Tides of War October 27, 2002

By K. Freeman

Format:Paperback

I am very fond of Pressfield's work --both Gates of Fire and The Last Amazon -- but this novel, in my opinion, represents a bumpy spot.

Pressfield likes to use framing devices, and he generally makes them work well, but here they become confusing. The voices of Polemides, the narrator to whom Polemides tells his story, and at least one other character are used, and they're indistinguishable. This means that characterization, never a huge Pressfield strength, is lacking, and it adds a degree of confusion.

Pressfield, in this novel, had a vastly complex historical situation to work with. It's hard to criticize the plot for the many turns and twists, for the fact that the reader loses track of who's on what side, what Alcibiades' current standing is, and who Polemides is working for, when the reality was just about that chaotic. What it means, though, is that the essential narrative thread tends to get lost. Long expositions of political minutia and philosophy slow the text considerably. Alcibiades, rather than an incredibly charismatic troublemaker, comes across as a blowhard whenever he opens his mouth (or pen) in this novel. It's hard to see how he bamboozled so many people.

Pressfield's great strength is the representation of battle, and that does appear here with the Syracuse campaign. As ever, he combines elevated diction with soldier slang to create a unique and gripping tone. Though this book did not work well for me, I believe in the author and feel that he is among the most interesting historical fiction writers currently publishing.

203 of 256 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Demanding and Sobering History Lesson May 2, 2000

By Newt Gingrich THE

Format:Hardcover

This is a much more complex and demanding novel than his brilliant and fast moving Gates of Fire (reviewed March 28, 2000). This is also a very sobering novel for any American who assumes that our economic prosperity, our international position of unchallenged leadership and the stability of our political institutions are safe and unchallengeable. Pressfield's novel carries Athens from a position of stunning power and wealth just before the beginning of the Peloponnesian War to its defeat and subjugation to the Spartans after 29 years of conflict.

Athens was so powerful and so wealthy that it could survive a plague that may have killed one-third of its population (brought on probably by the need to crowd inside the city's walls to avoid the Spartan Army) and it could fight off Sparta, most of Greece and the Persians for decades. Pressfield makes vivid the decay of Athenian democracy into a bloodthirsty system of revenge and brutality that helps us better understand our own founding fathers' fears of mob rule, tyranny and direct democracy. He uses the life of Alcibiades, a brilliant general and politician whose victories were undermined by his enemies, as a thread that holds together a generation of war and pain.

This is a slightly demanding book to read but it will profoundly trouble anyone who worries about the human propensity to repeat history rather than learn from it. There is much in this work for any American to think about.

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars If You're Up To It, This One Can Be Memorable July 21, 2002

By Richard R. Carlton

Format:Paperback

Yes, yes, we know Pressfield's great at battle detail and historically accurate story lines. More important in this work is the brilliant choice of character (Alcibiades) and the narrative technique of using two narrators (Jason & Polemides). Then the plot thickens.....Socrates shares the jail with Polemides and enters the script as well......Jason & Polemides have their own tangled web to unweave......this is a great novel that rises far above the thunder of the battle to enter the realm of a psychological analysis of democracy, theocracy, and a slew of both the finest and basest of human motivations.

This one wins on all levels.....Pressfield is cementing a beautiful reputation on these works.