Ciro el Grande

Cyrus the Great was a brilliant general who founded the Persian Empire, the greatest of its time. He was also the king who freed the Jews from their exile in Babylon and allowed them to return to Jerusalem (the Bible, in fact, mentions him as the only non-Jew "anointed by God"). In this first modern biography of Cyrus, Stephen Dando-Collins, the renowned historical biographer and author of forty-three books, recounts the character's intense youth, his rise to power through rebellion, his brilliant military campaigns that destroyed empires Mede, Lydian and Babylonian, and his magnificent and incomparable reign. With his usual lavish documentation and easy-to-read narrative style, Dando-Collins delves into the roots of myth to provide a fascinating look into an equally fascinating life.