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AZ1gecko
, January 01, 2013
It was a pleasure to read a book on Cleopatra that did NOT have the Hollywood treatment! Here, Cleopatra comes alive with all of the surrounding history, culture, art and personalities that were so vital to her time and history. She was an amazing woman who in the Egypt of her times was able to be all that she set out to achieve. Her power, her talents, her education and her abilities were able to come to the forefront in a period of time when women were usually pushed into the background and forgotten except as wives and mothers.
Her education in particular and her ability in speaking multiple languages allowed her to enter various worlds in which she negotiated, engaged in commerce and walked among the men who were in power, not only as an equal, but far above many of them.
The only reason I gave this book four stars and not five, is that it bogs down in the middle with too much minutiae and makes the book slow going for quite a few pages. I was rewarded by staying "with it" and it picked up again.
Stacy Schiff did a magnificent job of truly describing Cleopatra, both on a physical and intellectual level. I learned so much about this remarkable women and the times in which she lived.
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