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A Brief History of Cleopatra
A Brief History of Cleopatra draws on recent archaeological finds and fresh interpretations of ancient texts to separate truth from myth to set this incomparably beautiful queen in context.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
7 people are currently reading
182 people want to read
About the author
M.J. Trow
149 books119 followersMeirion James Trow is a full-time teacher of history who has been doubling as a crime writer for seventeen years. Originally from Ferndale, Rhondda in South Wales he now lives on the Isle of Wight. His interests include collecting militaria, film, the supernatural and true crime.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
February 7, 2017
This could have been called "A History of Vlad the Impaler, With Brief Mentions of Other Vampires" but eh.
The first few chapters are a brief, sometimes intriguing essay on vampirism, with a few pokes at Twilight moms (and a strangely critical view of the cinematic version of "Interview with the Vampire," panned here, but considered by many to be the definitive vampire film). The author touches on the Hammer Dracula stories, but almost nothing else (he leaves out Langella, the staged versions, the BBC versions, and various other adaptations, which is a shame, since it's interesting to contrast the spiritual and symbolic approaches to the characters across celluloid). He spends some time on vampirism through the centuries, some of which is also fascinating (who knew they were still afraid of vampires in Romania up to 2004 and beyond?), but the largest chunk of the book is about good old Vlad.
And it's redundant, unclear in its intention, and a bit boring.
What's the point? To clear his name? To share rumors of what a bloodthirsty psychotic bastard he was? To decide if the manner of impalement he supposedly used on his victims is impossible? The vague underlining motive here seems to be, "Eh, in comparison to his contemporaries, many of whom were also psychotic, bloodthirsty bastards, this one really wasn't unusual and/or as awful as the peasants made him out to be. Maybe."
It may be the critical editor in me, but the entire book felt like it lacked focus, or a decision on what it needed to be; and I felt at times, it avoided far more interesting potential ideas and topics (what about the spiritual nature of vampires, or exploring the sexual parallels, as is mentioned on occasion here, but never in depth?) in favor of less interesting ones (too much detail in the Vlad sections, and comparisons to other murderous dictators around the same time frame)... and yet, at times, there were good and/or interesting moments, throwaway information from every period, from Mary Shelly and Lord Byron's take on vampires to punishments in the Tudor era (good old Lady Jane, sainted martyr murdered by her eeevil cousin Bloody Mary, had a guy's ears cut off and nose sliced into slits for maligning her short 'reign' -- remind me not to take any time traveling trips back to the period).
Some of it's cool. Like, did you know Vlad and Richard III were contemporaries who knew of each other? And that some of the most awful punishments in Europe came directly from Vlad? Yup! That good old practice of boiling people to death, we have Vlad to thank for that! It was so good, Henry VIII commandeered it for awhile!
I wish the rest of the book had held my interest as much as the morbid portions, but overall, it feels a bit like cashing in on the Twilight aftermath craze -- and it's dated a bit, since it came out before the new slush of vampires on television ("Hello, Brother!" Why hello, Damon, shall we talk about how much you're like Spike? And Lestat? And... that just reminded me, he didn't talk much about Buffy that I can recall. How do you miss talking about that?!)
The first few chapters are a brief, sometimes intriguing essay on vampirism, with a few pokes at Twilight moms (and a strangely critical view of the cinematic version of "Interview with the Vampire," panned here, but considered by many to be the definitive vampire film). The author touches on the Hammer Dracula stories, but almost nothing else (he leaves out Langella, the staged versions, the BBC versions, and various other adaptations, which is a shame, since it's interesting to contrast the spiritual and symbolic approaches to the characters across celluloid). He spends some time on vampirism through the centuries, some of which is also fascinating (who knew they were still afraid of vampires in Romania up to 2004 and beyond?), but the largest chunk of the book is about good old Vlad.
And it's redundant, unclear in its intention, and a bit boring.
What's the point? To clear his name? To share rumors of what a bloodthirsty psychotic bastard he was? To decide if the manner of impalement he supposedly used on his victims is impossible? The vague underlining motive here seems to be, "Eh, in comparison to his contemporaries, many of whom were also psychotic, bloodthirsty bastards, this one really wasn't unusual and/or as awful as the peasants made him out to be. Maybe."
It may be the critical editor in me, but the entire book felt like it lacked focus, or a decision on what it needed to be; and I felt at times, it avoided far more interesting potential ideas and topics (what about the spiritual nature of vampires, or exploring the sexual parallels, as is mentioned on occasion here, but never in depth?) in favor of less interesting ones (too much detail in the Vlad sections, and comparisons to other murderous dictators around the same time frame)... and yet, at times, there were good and/or interesting moments, throwaway information from every period, from Mary Shelly and Lord Byron's take on vampires to punishments in the Tudor era (good old Lady Jane, sainted martyr murdered by her eeevil cousin Bloody Mary, had a guy's ears cut off and nose sliced into slits for maligning her short 'reign' -- remind me not to take any time traveling trips back to the period).
Some of it's cool. Like, did you know Vlad and Richard III were contemporaries who knew of each other? And that some of the most awful punishments in Europe came directly from Vlad? Yup! That good old practice of boiling people to death, we have Vlad to thank for that! It was so good, Henry VIII commandeered it for awhile!
I wish the rest of the book had held my interest as much as the morbid portions, but overall, it feels a bit like cashing in on the Twilight aftermath craze -- and it's dated a bit, since it came out before the new slush of vampires on television ("Hello, Brother!" Why hello, Damon, shall we talk about how much you're like Spike? And Lestat? And... that just reminded me, he didn't talk much about Buffy that I can recall. How do you miss talking about that?!)
June 17, 2019
M J Trow's A Brief History of Vampires claims to chart the whole vampire phenomena from its origins, which I felt was a little over ambitious.
Turns out I was right.
The book is in two parts: The first (taking up a little over a third of the overall content) deals primarily with the vampire in popular culture as entertainment, and how it has evolved from myth and lore to what we understand it to be today. However, I felt that Trow skimmed over (and left out) a lot of pop culture and modern-day "vampirism" in his rush to get to the second part (more on that in a sec), which was a shame because this was actually the most interesting part of the book. The socio-cultural aspects of vampirism was something that I felt the book lacked, as Trow only touches on the topic briefly - although, I suppose that is what happens when you have a historian writing about vampires, and not an anthropologist (just saying).
The second part of the book is dedicated to Vlad the Impaler, who is said to be the real-life inspiration for Bram Stoker's fantastical character Dracula. Trow's attempt at connecting the two, however, is far from convincing. Instead, what he presents is a rather detailed (and often irrelevant given the book's topic) history of Wallachia, the region of modern-day Romania of which Vlad was Voivode during the 15th Century. Anyone expecting to find the "origin" of the vampire in this book is only going to be left sorely disappointed. However, for anyone interested in learning more about the history of Wallachia, and in particular about Vlad and his father, then the second part of this book makes for a nice and concise history.
3 out of 5 stars because the historical research is good, but the pop culture, mythology and social aspects could have been much better.
Turns out I was right.
The book is in two parts: The first (taking up a little over a third of the overall content) deals primarily with the vampire in popular culture as entertainment, and how it has evolved from myth and lore to what we understand it to be today. However, I felt that Trow skimmed over (and left out) a lot of pop culture and modern-day "vampirism" in his rush to get to the second part (more on that in a sec), which was a shame because this was actually the most interesting part of the book. The socio-cultural aspects of vampirism was something that I felt the book lacked, as Trow only touches on the topic briefly - although, I suppose that is what happens when you have a historian writing about vampires, and not an anthropologist (just saying).
The second part of the book is dedicated to Vlad the Impaler, who is said to be the real-life inspiration for Bram Stoker's fantastical character Dracula. Trow's attempt at connecting the two, however, is far from convincing. Instead, what he presents is a rather detailed (and often irrelevant given the book's topic) history of Wallachia, the region of modern-day Romania of which Vlad was Voivode during the 15th Century. Anyone expecting to find the "origin" of the vampire in this book is only going to be left sorely disappointed. However, for anyone interested in learning more about the history of Wallachia, and in particular about Vlad and his father, then the second part of this book makes for a nice and concise history.
3 out of 5 stars because the historical research is good, but the pop culture, mythology and social aspects could have been much better.
August 10, 2017
Thinking back on it, this book was quite imformative, but I thought I'd embarras myself by linking my 2011 ''book review''..... It's so awkward. xD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j1mI...
July 25, 2022
DNF at 47%.
This gets way off-topic during its second part. Not really what I was expecting. It is meticulous in its historical research on Vlad Tepes, but other than that I found it to be boring and uninteresting and didn't like the author's writing style.
The book is called a brief history of VAMPIRES, not VLAD TEPES - there were way loads of other topics about vampires that the author could discuss before delving into the history of Wallachia and Vlad Tepes.
This gets way off-topic during its second part. Not really what I was expecting. It is meticulous in its historical research on Vlad Tepes, but other than that I found it to be boring and uninteresting and didn't like the author's writing style.
The book is called a brief history of VAMPIRES, not VLAD TEPES - there were way loads of other topics about vampires that the author could discuss before delving into the history of Wallachia and Vlad Tepes.
August 22, 2023
I don't really understand why this book was marketed the way it is and not as a historical biography of Vlad III, which I would generally find interesting anyway but actually this book left a lot to be desired. It was disjointed, information was given out in a weird order, so many names of people and places were spelled wrong, and there were some factual errors. The author seemed to contradict his own narrative several times, a small example being one paragraph that says Vlad was "probably married to his first wife" and then a few lines later that a certain person was "probably right when he says the pair were not married".
There was an entire chapter which basically said "It's pointless to try to psychoanalyze Vlad" and then proceeds to very badly do so anyway, including going through the list of "psychopathic" traits and among other things gives as an example for psychopathic lying that Vlad was evasive with paying Mehmed tribute and said Wallachia was currently too unstable! That's pretty ordinary politics, haha.
Anyway, the book needs a serious editing and would be much better marketed as a biography of Vlad with some tying in of the cultural aspects of Dracula and vampirism. There were plenty of interesting things brought up in the first half of the book about the cultural aspects that weren't expanded upon that could have been and are what I assume most people picking up the book expected and wanted to read about.
There was an entire chapter which basically said "It's pointless to try to psychoanalyze Vlad" and then proceeds to very badly do so anyway, including going through the list of "psychopathic" traits and among other things gives as an example for psychopathic lying that Vlad was evasive with paying Mehmed tribute and said Wallachia was currently too unstable! That's pretty ordinary politics, haha.
Anyway, the book needs a serious editing and would be much better marketed as a biography of Vlad with some tying in of the cultural aspects of Dracula and vampirism. There were plenty of interesting things brought up in the first half of the book about the cultural aspects that weren't expanded upon that could have been and are what I assume most people picking up the book expected and wanted to read about.
October 20, 2023
As other reviewers have pointed out, this book is not named correctly.
The first 100 pages or so are indeed about the history of vampires, largely about the recent media presence of the phenomenon of vampire lovers, rather than the mythological history I was hoping for.
After the second part begins we essentially get a written account of Vlad the Impaler's life, weighing up the stories of his cruelty and how true they are.
If the arrangement of the book was changed around, along with the name of the book was not implying that it was all about the history of vampires as a whole- I would have rated it higher. Vlad Tepes is such a huge part of vampire based history that you couldn't escape writing about him without mentioning the legacy his name has left behind in Stoker's novel, but it doesn't really work the other way around. You can write a book about vampires without dedicating two thirds of the book to his life.
Whether the choice of title was to get a wider audience, or a publishing decision that went wrong, I'm afraid I can't give more than 3 stars for a book that feels misrepresented by its cover, title and blurb.
The first 100 pages or so are indeed about the history of vampires, largely about the recent media presence of the phenomenon of vampire lovers, rather than the mythological history I was hoping for.
After the second part begins we essentially get a written account of Vlad the Impaler's life, weighing up the stories of his cruelty and how true they are.
If the arrangement of the book was changed around, along with the name of the book was not implying that it was all about the history of vampires as a whole- I would have rated it higher. Vlad Tepes is such a huge part of vampire based history that you couldn't escape writing about him without mentioning the legacy his name has left behind in Stoker's novel, but it doesn't really work the other way around. You can write a book about vampires without dedicating two thirds of the book to his life.
Whether the choice of title was to get a wider audience, or a publishing decision that went wrong, I'm afraid I can't give more than 3 stars for a book that feels misrepresented by its cover, title and blurb.
December 23, 2017
It's a bit whistle stop (and my edition was horribly out of date - 2010) but the chapters on Vlad the Impaler were excellent. Not sure I agree with his central premise that Vlad was the model for Dracula - I think it's a bit simplistic to say that - but it's a good read, not too dense and a great introduction to vampires generally. I would recommend to someone who hasn't read as many vampire novels as I have.
October 22, 2021
I would recommend only reading the first part of the book, which is actually about vampires, the second part of the book is just a long boring biography of Vlad the Impaler and the political happenings of his home around the time of his life.
April 8, 2023
The book is only partly about Cleopatra. Trow puts a lot into the background story and history of the Ptolemic dynasty and spends half the book on Roman history and politics rather than the life of Cleopatra. Trow doesn't even get to her reign until after page 100 in a book under 250 pages.
April 1, 2020
Not what I expected at all.
March 2, 2023
It is a good introduction into the world of Cleopatra. It tells a compelling history of her life from records.
September 19, 2025
Not what I expected. Stuffed with authentic, sincere historical detail about Vlad the Impaler. Worth a revisit.
April 15, 2013
Approaching A Brief History of Vampires, I had expected a bit more about vampires in popular culture. I was expecting to read a little of Vlad Tepes and the impact of Dracula and then look at the development of vampires through modern culture.
There was a little about vampires on screen etc. in the first third of the book, but then the rest was dedicated to the life and times of Vlad Tepes. There was nothing wrong with this in itself and I had no issues with the author's research or writing, but I have read books on the man's life before and there was, therefore, nothing new to me in this text.
If you are keen on history and interested in vampires, this could be a good read for you, but if you already know a lot about the subject, it is likely redundant.
There was a little about vampires on screen etc. in the first third of the book, but then the rest was dedicated to the life and times of Vlad Tepes. There was nothing wrong with this in itself and I had no issues with the author's research or writing, but I have read books on the man's life before and there was, therefore, nothing new to me in this text.
If you are keen on history and interested in vampires, this could be a good read for you, but if you already know a lot about the subject, it is likely redundant.
July 22, 2013
The cultural studies parts were well written. I got up to the second section which started on Vlad's history. How did you make Vlad the Impaler boring? I didn't like the way it was written. What ultimately made me put this book down is the repetition of the phrase 'this will be addressed in later sections' or some derivative. It felt like the editing or organization of the information was off if the author had to repeat this so often. I have never read an analysis of anything that repeated that sentence enough for me to notice. It might be a weird thing to be annoyed about but it really frustrated me.
Read
December 14, 2012I enjoyed this book, the first part is about the vampire in popular culture. But most of the book is about the historical Vlad and the history of central Europe. It was enlightening.
August 10, 2015
Gave up on page 158. This book is awfully dull and gets way off the point. Instead of being a history of vampires, it's just like 'idk Dracula is a vampire.' It's stupid. I'm disappointed.
September 20, 2012
It was pretty good.
Read
January 17, 2019Didn’t finish. Donated
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews